Evidence of meeting #164 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was money.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
We are completely out of time, Mr. McCauley and Mr. Purves.
I think we got our answer on that one.
Madam Ratansi, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Thank you very much, and thank you, witnesses, for being here.
We have a new minister for the Treasury Board and digital strategy.
I'm looking at the Treasury Board estimates and trying to find out where the digital part of it is. Could you tell me how much money is being allocated to the digital strategy?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
There's nothing in the supplementaries that's being allocated for digital strategy.
Liberal
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Typically, everything that's approved for the next fiscal year is approved in the main estimates, so there would have to be a portion of it.
My colleague, who is the CFO for TBS, can speak to this.
Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question.
Actually, our main estimates will reflect past approved funding from past fiscal years, such as the last fiscal year. We have funding for the Canadian Digital Service in our future main estimates, so you will see it agglomerated in our vote 1 funding.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay. It's not a problem.
I'm carrying on with what Mr. Blaikie asked you. The thing is, what are the instructions to departments? What sort of baseline are they supposed to use to start their budgets? Is it a zero-based budgeting?
Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat
There are two parts to your question.
On the second part, which is the most straightforward part, no, we don't work on a zero-based budgeting in the sense that we don't every year rebuild everybody's budget from nothing.
What actually happens is that every time there is a funding approval—if there are many years or even an ongoing portion to this approval—once it's been through Treasury Board, it's considered briefed into the reference levels. Then the funding for each year appears in a fresh appropriation act that's put in front of Parliament.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
If I asked for $100 million and used $50 million, would my base be $50 million for the next year?
Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, not necessarily. Your base for next year would be whatever your original approval would have carried. If it was $100 million ongoing, your base would still go back to $100 million.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
Okay, but I see that some departments are being asked to use percentages and different departments are using different percentages. Can you clarify what's going on there?
Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat
Because it is a pilot and because people become creatures of habit, they talk about what we're doing now with the same language that they've been using to talk about what we used to do, which is why we get this kind of mix-up where people say that they're asking for 25% or three-twelfths of their main estimates. What they really mean to say is that they're asking for 25% or three-twelfths of what they need for the year.
In the instructions, a copy of which we will provide for the committee, that is the first instruction we give: “Tell us what you need to begin your fiscal year”, which is roughly what you need for the first three months of the year.
Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat
Now, if I could refer back to Mr. Blaikie's earlier point about referring to a main estimates amount, in some ways, because we have this practice of carrying previous approvals in an ongoing A-base, they have, at any given time, an idea of what next year's main estimates would be if nothing else were to happen. Sort of buried in our technical instructions for how to arrive at interim estimates is that departments are asked to figure out two things. One is the cash requirement for the first three months of the year. The other—and it's written into almost every vote wording that you will see in the proposed schedules of the appropriation bill—is that there is a reference to the total commitments that can be entered into for the following year.
For example, for the Privy Council Office, their interim estimates request is only about $53 million, but there's a specific line in their vote 1 wording that says they can enter into commitments not exceeding $163 million, more or less, for the fiscal year. That is the number they're referring to as their main estimates. It's what they know now to be their main estimates if nothing else happens. That is published in the interim estimates along with the specific request.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
But that was a great try, Madam Ratansi. You tried to sneak that one in there.
We'll go to Monsieur Deltell for five minutes, please.
Gérard Deltell Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, dear friends. First, I want to extend greetings to all of the employees of Treasury Board. Treasury Board has had four presidents in the past nine weeks. I may have a political viewpoint on that, but I won't comment. However, I understand that it is never easy for public servants when a new minister comes in. That is quite normal, no matter who the minister is. That said, having had four in the space of nine weeks can't have been easy for you. So, through you, I commend all of the men and women who work at Treasury Board.
However, do allow me one brief political aside: in seven months, you will have a new president of Treasury Board, if that is the population's wish.
I'd like to go back to the famous issue of Treasury Board vote 40. We voiced some very serious concerns about this central appropriation of $7 billion—which some have referred to as a slush fund—when it was proposed last year. Indeed, that amount could be both a catch-all and a mechanism allowing the government to fund very specific activities just a few months before the election. And we see today that a lot of that money has been spent, but we have few details as to how.
Here are my questions: the government still has seven months to govern before the population makes its decision. What is left of the $7 billion originally allocated under vote 40? What are the planned or potential authorized expenditures, and what are the related dates? And will Treasury Board have to abandon spending the funds from that vote once the election has been called?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you very much for your questions.
My answers are very simple on this one.
The budget implementation vote expires effectively at the end of the fiscal year. If departments have submissions, and their Treasury Board meetings up to the end of the fiscal year.... If they come in and Treasury Board gives approval, and there's no deviation from the scope of the initiative and it's entirely consistent with the stringent language that's around the use of that vote, then funds can be allocated to it, but only up to March 31. After March 31—whether it's April 1, 2 or 3—if a department has not received funding or has not come forward for funding for an initiative, it would have to be captured in an estimates.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
As you know, the election will be on October 21. We think the Prime Minister will launch the campaign six weeks beforehand. Does the chair of the Treasury Board have full power, full authorization, to spend more money during the election campaign?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
To spend more money than has been allocated?
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
To spend money and to give all the indications that they want from this particular envelope.
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
The only thing I would say is that there is a specific authority that's in supply that's been granted per Parliament. That would be through main estimates, and then any supplementary estimates that could be before that, if there is one.
After that, once you're in the writ period, then you move to Governor General special warrants. It would need to be something as routine business and that is approved by the Governor General through the writ period. That period can last from the beginning of the writ and can span up to 60 days past the return of the writ.
