Government Operations Committee on March 7th, 2017

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

I want to continue with the PCO for a moment here.

I went over your performance report. You categorized the priorities into two priorities, I think. Is it time maybe to revisit those priorities based on the new roles, the new functions, that your office is performing? You're effectively I think supporting not just the Prime Minister now, but also the Minister of Youth and the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs. Do you see any reason to change the priorities of your department, or does that new role fit into the priorities as they exist?

[Serge Dupont]

The fundamental role and mission of the Privy Council Office will remain the same. There are three parts we identify. First is the support to the Prime Minister and the ministers of the portfolio, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and the Minister for Democratic Institutions in this case. Second is the support to the cabinet, the effective operation of the cabinet, and third is then to be leading the public service writ large. Those three components are going to continue, and I think will remain our top-line objectives.

However, we have to evolve as the priorities of the government evolve, as the role and the priorities of the Prime Minister evolve, as he takes on, as I indicated to you earlier, new roles. We, of course, try to reflect in our different documents—including the performance report, which is however backward looking, and in the planning documents—how we view our priorities, how we consider we can best service the Prime Minister, the ministers of the portfolios, the cabinet, and ensure an effective and responsive public service.

We evolve. We do reflect on our objectives, and particularly our performance indicators, but the fundamental characteristics and role of PCO stand.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

If I can get a quick question in, I have an accounting question for Ms. Hazen.

I note in your report that your estimates show that Shared Services Canada is receiving $31 million in transfers from other organizations. Do you expend the money first and then they pay you back? How does that process work?

[Samantha Hazen]

Thank you very much for the question.

As Ms. Ramcharan alluded to earlier, we do a process whereby we can cash-manage funds. If we know in advance that these monies need to be spent, we can incur the expenditures up front and then receive the money as part of the supplementary estimates (C) process.

[Kyle Peterson, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you. That clarifies it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much.

Mr. McCauley, you have seven minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

Mr. Peterson, I'm glad we were not in camera, because there's no way anyone would have believed me when I went out and said that you defended MyDemocracy....

Mr. Dupont, to go back very quickly to MyDemocracy.ca, when was the decision made? You mentioned that it was sent over to Public Works to source it. Do you know when the decision was made to create that website in the process? If you don't, that's fine.

[Serge Dupont]

I'm just checking my notes to see when the contract was awarded. The contract was awarded in September 2016.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. You mentioned in your notes, “These one-time communications and engagement activities required the support of 4.5 FTEs”. Are those contract FTEs, or were they people transferred in to help out, or were those new hires who have now been released or permanent FTEs who were added? This was for the creation and engagement of MyDemocracy.ca.

[Serge Dupont]

Right. PCO has about a thousand employees altogether, so there's a fair amount of movement in any particular year, and it will adjust to some of the pressures up and down. I would suspect in this case—and I'd be happy to check to be very clear about it—we would have allocated some resources and maybe hired a couple of extra people who would have been devoted to this activity. Then that requirement is no longer there the following year.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

They're just generally shuffled on to other duties.

[Serge Dupont]

Yes, it's probably just part of the overall churn—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's just throwing in an extra four and a half people there...?

[Serge Dupont]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

On the $500,000 in the supplementary (C)s for ads, I'm not sure if you discussed it already. What is that for? I know that it's a horizontal line.

[Serge Dupont]

Thank you for that, because we talked about it a bit when we talked about reaching out to Canadians in the mailout that went to the households. There were—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Was that the democratic reform one?

[Serge Dupont]

That's correct.

That was mailed out to the households. I did mention that earlier.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

[Serge Dupont]

In addition to that, the $500,000 refers to design, media planning, and media via digital advertising, banners, and posts, so that included banners on various websites—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Was that solely to support the democratic reform one or was that across the board for other items as well?

[Serge Dupont]

This was also in support of democratic reform, of electoral reform, and that included Twitter ads, Facebook ads and so forth, so that, again, individuals could click and then be directed to MyDemocracy.ca.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How many people are currently employed in the Senate selection process? It's come up before in a couple of our meetings on supplementaries in terms of what I think is an outrageous sum. I think that just this last year it was something like $1.2 million for what they said was basically forwarding resumés.

It's mentioned in the supplementaries that this million dollars supports the Senate selection committee. Is that correct? Is that like an ongoing cost for secretarial support?

[Serge Dupont]

Let me try to ensure that I give you the correct answer here. For new funding that was sought for Senate reform—and this was in supplementary estimates (A), I believe—there was funding of $1.5 million to essentially fund 5.4 full-time equivalent positions. Of course, we did allocate existing—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Yes, it's in the upcoming main estimates as well.