Evidence of meeting #180 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 departments.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Bill Matthews  Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Les Linklater  Associate Deputy Minister, Human Resources-to-Pay Stabilization, Department of Public Works and Government Services
André Fillion  Assistant Deputy Minister, Defence and Marine Procurement, Acquisitions Program, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Michael Vandergrift  Associate Deputy Minister, Public Services and Procurement Canada, Department of Public Works and Government Services
Glenn Purves  Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Karen Cahill  Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Baxter Williams  Executive Director, Employment Conditions and Labour Relations, Treasury Board Secretariat
Jacquie Manchevsky  Corporate Secretary, Next Generation HR and Pay Team, Treasury Board Secretariat

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Altogether for the five years, what will it cost, ballpark?

Around $290 million?

4:45 p.m.

Baxter Williams Executive Director, Employment Conditions and Labour Relations, Treasury Board Secretariat

As the liability is established, it's unwound as people use it.

4:45 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

That's the thing. Over the period of time—

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

So you made the offer of five days without any idea of....

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

The net cost is zero because the expectation is that people will use those days.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

If the net cost is zero, why not give them 20 days for all of their hardship? There is a cost behind giving everyone five days off because people have to cover for them. There's usually—

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Again, there's a liability attributed to it, but the liability is then unwound.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Okay. What will the liability be?

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Just to be clear, there are circumstances where employees have left the public service and were paid out—

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

Right. That's paying those who cashed out.

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

They would be cashed out. For those who work 24-7—Correctional Services employees and so forth—where if someone's not there, they have to have somebody else in place....

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB

You understand my worries. You can't explain it to us. You've made an offer of five days to 290,000 people, but there's no cost behind that.

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

No. I'm just saying that it's not a simple calculation. I was happy to go through that last week.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

Thank you.

Mr. Blaikie, you have five minutes please.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to you all for being here.

I want to go back to Mr. McCauley's first line of questioning with respect to vote 10 and government-wide initiatives.

I'm asking for a little historical perspective here.

When I first came to Parliament almost four years ago—it's not terribly long ago—and was studying the estimates, my understanding of government-wide initiatives was that they were strategic initiatives that cut across different departments from a management and an administrative point of view. So if you had some kind of management training that you wanted to implement or if some kind of new software was going to be shared among departments, that might be a place where government-wide initiatives lie. Has the definition of what constitutes a government-wide initiative changed for the purposes of vote 10?

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Let me just describe what the definition of vote 10 is. It's subject to the approval of the Treasury Board to supplement other appropriations in support of the implementation of strategic management initiatives in the public service of Canada.

Broad strategic initiatives over time have encompassed a number of different initiatives. When you look at it, you'll see there is funding for indigenous early learning and child care. There is $120 million that's in there for that.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

My understanding initially—

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

The LNG—

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

—which corresponded to the relatively low amount of spending that we've traditionally seen under vote 10—was that there was more emphasis on strategic management initiatives that are about changing or improving the way departments manage their business. That actually had a kind of management-specific meaning. It seems to me that there has been a widening of the definition of what counts as a government-wide initiative that corresponds to a massive increase in the amount of funding that's being requested under the vote. It's not exactly clear to me when that definition changed, nor is it clear to me how some of the things you just mentioned are under vote 10 are substantially different from some of the new budget items that are also across departments.

If you look—and I'm sorry I don't have a great example for you right now, but I'm sure you can find some—you'll see that even under Treasury Board, ensuring proper payments for public servants is a cross-departmental initiative. We'll find that line in other departmental estimates. It's likewise with advancing gender equality.

Why are those just not under government-wide initiatives then? On the definition you've just given us for government-wide initiatives, it seems that would be an appropriate place for them to lie.

What are the criteria that distinguish those new budget items that are appearing in separate departmental estimates versus the ones that appear under government-wide initiatives?

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

When you look historically, you'll see there are many factors that could influence the use of vote 10. One of them is if there are more initiatives being pursued that have horizontality in them, in the sense that they touch many different departments, that is one thing that could actually lead to an augmentation in the volume through that vote.

Another thing is just the strategic nature of these from the position of the Government of Canada.

The third is that when you look at the budget items, arguably through the budget process there was an identification of a certain amount that would go with a certain department. That's why you're seeing a number of budget implementation votes with the same title but residing under different departmental pages. They know exactly how much should go to each department.

In this case, these are for horizontal initiatives where it's not clear precisely how much should reside with one department versus the other. There are a number of departments involved, and that's consistent with—

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

If I could follow up: If the initiative isn't developed sufficiently to know roughly how much funding is going to be required under which department, is it not premature to be coming to Parliament for authority to spend? Is it not fair to expect that the government would have done at least enough homework that it has a rough sense of the level of involvement of each department and the corresponding financial need before it comes to Parliament for spending authority?

4:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

I can't comment on the timing of each of these precise issues, but the intention is to ensure that the supply is there such that when the Treasury Board submission goes through—

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB

I mean—

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski

I'm afraid we're completely out of time. We will have additional questions, though, Mr. Blaikie. Don't worry. We won't leave here until you satisfy your curiosity.

We'll go to Ms. Mendès for five minutes.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

Ms. Cahill, I'm going to continue with Mr. Blaikie's line of questioning in an effort to arrive at the answer he was looking for.

if I understood correctly, you told my fellow member, Ms. Ratansi, that people in the various departments aren't really in the habit of budgeting.