Government Operations Committee on March 18th, 2019

[Glenn Purves]

Sure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

One thing that came up is there's $2 billion in withheld funds.

Can you provide to the committee, not now but later, a breakdown of what those withheld funds are for, or what they were intended for and had been approved for?

[Glenn Purves]

Sure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

An example came up. I think it was $65 million that had been pre-approved under vote 40 for INAC, and it turns out, oops, we made a mistake. It doesn't belong to INAC; that money belongs to a different department.

[Glenn Purves]

Sure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

So it gets put as withheld and then it shows up in the supplementary estimates (B) under a different department.

[Glenn Purves]

That's correct.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Now in a way they're happy because it shows a tiny bit of oversight because you can't just reprofile the money over—

[Glenn Purves]

That's correct.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

—but it gets back to our original dispute about concerns about vote 40 where there was no real plan for all this money being spent, no oversight. If we made a $65-million mistake and put it in the wrong department, are there other ones that you've identified like that, of the $7 billion, that were put in the wrong department?

[Glenn Purves]

None come to mind that were in the wrong department.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Apart from this one....

[Glenn Purves]

It's an important point you raise. If there's something that's in vote 40 for a specific department, for a specific initiative, for a specific amount, if there's any deviation on that, if there's any change in that, in other words, if the amount actually is—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I realize it still has to go through Treasury Board, but that's our concern. You're asking parliamentarians to pre-approve money, as you did with the $65 million, but there should be a plan behind it. We've heard various witnesses say, “Well, I don't know what the money is for. I was told by TBS just to put it in.”

[Glenn Purves]

Well, I—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

We also heard other departments say, “Frankly, it's none of your business what the money's for”, and here's an example of $65 million being pre-approved by parliamentarians when it was the completely wrong department.

I'd like to know what else there is. I'm looking at Indigenous Services. There is $140 million withheld for the new fiscal relationship for self-governing, $65 million withheld for a new fiscal relationship strengthening first nations institutions, $75 million withheld for the reprofiling of indigenous infrastructure allocation, $25 million withheld for distinctions-based housing strategies.

Again, why did we go through the process of a vote 40 which takes away a fair amount of accountability and oversight of Parliament, pre-approve items, just to find out, well, we're going to withhold them and not spend the money because they can't get by Treasury Board, or we don't need the money, or we're not going to be able to roll it out anyway?

[Glenn Purves]

Maybe just as a general statement I'd say that there are no approvals being taken away. You still have a policy approval. You still have the source of funds approval. You—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

There is $7 billion pre-approved before going to Treasury Board.

[Glenn Purves]

—still have implementation, which is taken by Treasury Board. There are no approvals actually being taken away or skirted in this process.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

No, you did—

[Glenn Purves]

In terms of your other question, though, you had a question: Is there anything else?

The international feminist agenda is something that is coming. It was originally envisaged through vote 40, but it's coming back through the supplementary (B)s because there was a portion of it that had not been determined yet. At the very bottom of that table, you'll see there was a portion of about $500 million. For transparency purposes, that item cannot just be provided funding after a Treasury Board meeting—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm almost out of time, so I just want to read something very quickly.

[Glenn Purves]

Sure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

This is from the PBO on supplementary estimates and he states, “As the previous President of the Treasury Board”—or, as I call it, the Treasury Board president of the month—“has noted, a significant portion of Budget implementation delay stems from the Government's own internal processes.”

The PBO says, “Thus, it may be difficult for parliamentarians to see significant improvements until these internal processes are streamlined.” Do you agree with the PBO on this?

[Glenn Purves]

To be honest, I don't, because last fiscal year and this fiscal year the government is on track to implement all of its measures that were identified for the next fiscal year. In the current fiscal year, they're looking to implement about $7 billion, and the previous one was $2.3 billion. We're coming back to the same issue that you raised before.