Government Operations Committee on June 12th, 2019

[Karen Cahill]

What we're—

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

—so what are you doing to move forward?

[Karen Cahill]

Through the centre of excellence on costing we're trying to educate other government departments on how to best assess their financial risk and—especially when they're presenting TB submissions to our department, or through the Treasury Board Secretariat—how to best cost their financial risk as well.

Costing is not something people are really used to doing. We're trying to also give them the right guidelines to ensure that they perform costing as accurately as possible, understanding that when you're costing an initiative there are many things that would be out of your control that you will not necessarily take into account.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes.

[Glenn Purves]

Maybe I could just add to that.

When guidance is provided to departments in creating their departmental plans and so forth, on the financial risk side there are certain risks, from a standard deviation standpoint, that are tail risks. It's important to be able—as you're providing a story in terms of the programs and the costs attributed to these programs—to speak to some of the outliers that exist and how the department is mitigating the risks with respect to those outliers.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

There are sometimes risks beyond their control.

[Karen Cahill]

Yes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

So, if there are geopolitical risks or other risks, then how do you guide them, or what do you do? Do you have, yourself, a mitigating strategy when departments provide their financial risk, to say maybe we'll put a buffer or something?

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Give a very brief answer if that's possible.

[Karen Cahill]

We're not putting the buffer ourselves. What we can do is challenge the departments to ensure that they have looked at all the mitigating factors and that they themselves have put the buffers on the costing that they have provided.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks.

Ms. Santiago and Mr. Purves, a couple of estimates meetings ago, we asked about the $90 million under vote 10 for LNG and you didn't have an answer for us at the time. Are you able to update us now on what that money is for?

[Glenn Purves]

I'm happy to provide information on what I know with respect to that LNG item.

As you know, it's still in the main estimates and it's still contained under vote 10.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes.

[Glenn Purves]

I'll just read it.

The $40 billion LNG Canada project represents the single largest private investment project in Canadian history—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I know all the talking points. What's the $90 million for?

[Glenn Purves]

Right now, because it's still in vote 10, a lot of the program design and a lot of the due diligence in precisely where that $90 million will be allocated are still being worked out.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Why vote 10? Vote 10 traditionally has rarely been used, and now we've seen hundreds of millions poured into these votes. Why the $90 million?

[Glenn Purves]

Vote 10 is—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

On behalf of taxpayers, I'm trying to figure out what the $90 million is for, but it's almost a year now and we can't get an answer. Why has it been squirrelled away in a vote 10?

[Glenn Purves]

Vote 10 is a circumstance where there is a significant strategic project or initiative that covers many departments, so it's a horizontal initiative.

Until such time as the submission goes through Treasury Board and the allocation is made to various departments, it's captured under vote 10. So in this instance, I believe the item was announced as part of the fall economic update, and we had it as an item in the supplementary (B)s that were approved.

I think that's the meeting you were talking about before.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right. It went through the supplementary (B)s without an answer. We still don't have an answer on the main estimates. Again it's a lot of taxpayer's money. It would be nice to know what it's for. There has to be some plan. I can't imagine the government just threw $90 million in there and walked away.

[Glenn Purves]

I have additional details on the venture and so forth. I'm happy to provide them, but until such time as it's allocated through Treasury Board, it's very hard for me to be able to say precisely where the funds go in which department, because it does cover a few departments.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I want to pull up a question I had from last week. The government has made an offer to the public sector for compensation for Phoenix of five days—two days' leave, one day's leave, one day's leave, and one day's leave in 2019-20. The government wouldn't make an offer like that without knowing how much that would cost the Treasury. What's the cost of that offer, regardless of whether it's accepted or not?

[Glenn Purves]

There are many different cost aspects to that. There's a liability component and then there's the direct cost component.

In terms of the liability, I think five days were offered. Of those days, it becomes a contingent liability on the books of Canada for three years. After that, those liabilities are unwound over a period of about 14 years.