Government Operations Committee on March 9th, 2017

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Welcome to meeting number 75 of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Today's meeting, once again, is dealing with supplementary estimates (C) and performance reports from various departments.

Today we have the pleasure of Minister Brison being with us once again. Welcome, Mr. Brison.

I understand you have a short opening statement. We'll start with that, and then we'll follow the normal routine of questioning.

Minister, the floor is yours.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, President of the Treasury Board]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to be here today before your committee to discuss the supplementary estimates.

I have with me today from the Treasury Board Secretariat, Yaprak Baltacioglu, secretary of the Treasury Board Secretariat; Brian Pagan, assistant secretary, expenditure management sector; Marcia Santiago, executive director, expenditure management; and Grace Chennette, executive director, financial management directorate.

In supplementary estimates (C) 2016-17, the government is seeking Parliament's approval of funding to address matters of importance to Canadians.

These include funds for humanitarian assistance, border security, climate change, and veterans and their families. Specifically, the government is seeking parliamentary approval for $2.5 billion in additional investments in 47 organizations.

Included in this amount are 11 major items valued at more than $50 million.

There are also nine horizontal initiatives in which departments are seeking funding approval to work in partnership on shared outcomes, for instance, in addressing the crisis in Iraq and Syria.

Among these requests, I would note $545 million in Treasury Board vote 30 for the Treasury Board Secretariat to fund adjustments to the terms and conditions of employment to plan for the ratification of collective agreements with the Public Service; $350 million for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for the transfer of 19 federal dams to the Government of Saskatchewan, as announced in budget 2016; $178 million for Employment and Social Development Canada to write off unrecoverable Canada student loans; $174 million for Global Affairs Canada for humanitarian assistance and antimicrobial resistance initiatives; $133 million for Global Affairs Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada to help developing countries address the impact of climate change; $132 million for Veterans Affairs Canada for programs and services to support veterans and their families; and a combined total of $118 million to Canada Border Services Agency to maintain the integrity of Canada's border operations.

These supplementary estimates represent an increase of 2.8% in voted appropriations over the the main estimates tabled in February 2016.

As you know, the estimates documents also include updated forecasts of statutory authorities authorized by Parliament through separate legislation. Supplementary estimates (C) include a $964-million net decrease in the statutory forecast, mainly related to reduced interest charges on public debt.

There is also a decrease of $431 million in loans to students and apprentices, because this financial assistance is now being offered as grants. This 50% increase in the Canada student grants program was announced in budget 2016, and it will benefit nearly 100,000 students from middle-income families every year.

While the government is asking for $2.5 billion to be voted in these estimates, the supplementary estimates (C) also include an online annex. This annex details close to $3 billion in frozen allotments that will no longer be available to departments for spending. During the fiscal year, the government can adjust the funds available to departments in accordance with evolving program developments and priorities. In this way, the Treasury Board authorizes that funding be frozen so it is not available to spend on anything else.

At the end of the fiscal year, these frozen allotments are included in the lapse shown in public accounts. Last year, we introduced this annex to provide greater transparency and accountability. This was actually noted by the PBO. Without this, the first time that frozen allotments would be shown would be in the public accounts, seven or eight months after the end of the fiscal year. Because of our change, parliamentarians and Canadians are now able to see this information much sooner.

Another measure we took to make the government more open and transparent and accountable was the new review process to ensure that advertising is non-partisan. Advertising Standards Canada, a national non-for-profit organization committed to ensuring the integrity of advertising, now conducts independent reviews of our ads. As a result, Canadians know that the information they receive from their government represents a legitimate public service announcement.

We have followed through on our budget 2016 commitment to reduce spending on government advertising, travel, and professional services. I'm pleased to say that we have fulfilled our commitment to reduce these expenditures by over $200 million.

Mr. Chair, before concluding I'll provide the committee with a brief overview of the requirements of the Treasury Board Secretariat presented in these supplementary estimates (C).

The department is seeking Parliament's approval to spend an additional $722.7 million. This includes a combined total of $716.8 million in the central votes managed by the secretariat on behalf of the government for Government of Canada obligations that exist across departments and agencies. Specifically these obligations relate to terms and conditions of employment, compensation adjustments with respect to collective bargaining, and even such things as parental leave, as an example of one of these. While these affect individual departments, ultimately Treasury Board is engaged in this.

As you know, our commitment to respecting the public service and bargaining in good faith with them has yielded agreements, as of now, with more than 80% of represented public servants. At the time we were elected, all of the collective bargaining agreements had expired, some of them for three or four years almost, and we committed to restoring a culture of respect for and within our public service. Part of that was negotiating in good faith, and we are making significant progress.

The majority of the funding related to collective agreements in supplementary estimates (C) had been set aside by departments during previous years in which the previous government had been unable to reach agreements. It is now being made available as agreements become ratified.

In addition to these central funds, we are seeking $5.9 million in TBS vote 1, program expenditures, for items such as improving access to information, funding the back office transformation initiative, advancing the service agenda, and transferring the office of greening government operations to Treasury Board Secretariat, which is something we are very excited about.

I want to also commend the parliamentary secretary to Treasury Board, Joyce Murray, who is with us today. She has demonstrated tremendous leadership in establishing our office of greening government in Treasury Board. This is going to make a real difference. We're targeting a reduction by 40% of greenhouse gas emissions for the Government of Canada.

This is a significant commitment, but it's going to make a big difference in terms of our leadership as a government with respect to climate change. Last November, when we set the target of reducing emissions by 40% by 2030, we were serious about it, and that's why we're establishing metrics and measuring results, so that Canadians can actually hold us to account. Putting this centre within the Treasury Board Secretariat is really helpful to driving this across departments and agencies.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my presentation on the main points in supplementary estimates (C).

Finally, Mr. Chair, I look forward to continuing our discussions on how to improve the estimates process. We've had discussions in good faith among all parties, and we share the view that the current system is confusing, frustrating, illogical, dysfunctional, and opaque. I remain committed, and I look forward to working with you and parliamentarians as we move forward, to improving the system in order to provide better, more timely, more useful information to parliamentarians and better accountability for our government and future governments to Parliament and to Canadians.

At this point my officials and I would be pleased to take your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We'll go into our seven-minute round of questioning. I would remind all members again that the proceedings today are televised.

Our first intervention will come from Mr. Whalen.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Brison, thanks for coming today.

You mentioned in your opening remarks that Treasury Board introduced an online annex last year to demonstrate the frozen allotments and lapsed funds so that they would be more transparent to Canadians. Could you further explain how this provides greater transparency to parliamentarians? Even on the website itself it is still quite complicated.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The change has improved transparency from the perspective that previously you had to wait seven or eight months after the fiscal year to have this information. This is recognized by the PBO.

It's one step, one initiative, but you're quite right that there's a lot of work left to be done. InfoBase, which is a tool for citizens and for parliamentarians to get more timely information about government activity and expenditures, is helpful. We want to improve it in terms of its user-friendliness, and we want to expand it in terms of what it actually covers.

I have to tell you, there are other countries.... I look at Performance.gov, the website that was established under the Obama administration. You can go through departments and agencies, and they are graded and rated on whether or not they are meeting their objectives. There are clear objectives for each department and agency, and citizens and legislators in the U.S. can easily hold departments and agencies to account. That creates an alignment between people on the political side, the citizenry, and the public service to get it done and to ensure that we meet our objectives.

Our results policy, which was launched last July, is something that is already making a difference in terms of departments and agencies defining what they do, why they're doing it, and how well they're doing in terms of the results and metrics. We're in the early stages of this, but we want to do a lot more. This committee can be an important partner as we move forward, and I look forward to returning as we strengthen this reportage.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

A number of my constituents wrote to me about the Jordan's principle funding announced last year. As a result of the lapsed funding page, they were concerned that the $80 million in lapsed funding or frozen allotments under the department that is now Indigenous and Northern Affairs might have been Jordan's principle money. It's not clear from the page.

Is there a move afoot to add project-level or program-level descriptions to some of these allotments so Canadians can rest assured that the Jordan's principle money is going to flow forward into next year?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

One of the things, as you'll recall from our previous appearance, is that more specific reportage, based on purpose-based reportage, actually helps significantly in terms of parliamentarians understanding exactly where the money is going.

We've done pilot programs at Transport Canada, which are successful. As we move forward, for individual departments and agencies, including Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada, this will be one of the areas in which I think you're going to see greater transparency.

On this, I know that in terms of Jordan's principle, both Minister Philpott and Minister Bennett are committed to making sure the results are delivered. There has been progress in partnerships with indigenous communities and indigenous leadership. I think over the last year we've worked hard to.... It's not just a matter of dollars and cents in terms of the $8.4 billion committed in budget 2016 to indigenous peoples in Canada. It's really about rebooting a fundamentally important relationship between our government and first nations and indigenous peoples across Canada. I think we've made progress, but a lot of work remains to be done.

With regard to the format, maybe Brian would—

[Brian Pagan, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat]

As the minister says, our reform agenda, the discussion paper we have advanced, does include a proposal that we move from the current vote structure to a program or purpose vote structure. I think that in itself would go some way to the greater transparency Mr. Whalen is looking for.

Specifically with respect to the question of the frozen allotments this year, there has been additional detail provided. On page 7 we note the components, or the elements, of the different programs that have been re-profiled or for which the funds are no longer available. With respect to Indian and Northern Affairs, it's footnote 1.8 on page 7. It references transfer payments related to the federal contaminated sites action plan and the settlement and implementation of claims to support consultation and engagement. Those are the two program areas. There's nothing related to Jordan's principle.

[Nick Whalen, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Okay.

I really wanted to hear a bit more about the centre for greening government. It's interesting because we're very committed to reducing carbon pollution and measuring effective and efficient ways to do that. What sorts of measures are we going to be seeing coming out of this office? Is it going to be greenhouse gas reductions, or is it going to be greenhouse gas reductions per dollar spent on a program-by-program basis?

Maybe you could also squeeze in this in the short time allotted. Why is the centre for greening government finding itself in Treasury Board, rather than some other department of government? Are the evidence-based metrics going to all reside in Treasury Board over time?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Lukiwski]

I think I'm going to unfortunately ask you to hold your answer until perhaps the next question because we only have a few seconds left.

We'll have to go to Mr. McCauley now for seven minutes.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you.

It's a darn good question.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thank you.

His break-taking question will have to wait.

Anyway, welcome back. It's always great to have you.

I'm just going back to the frozen allotments. There's $829 million in infrastructure. The second one is $366 million for defence. Do you know what those projects were? Is the intent to just roll it over into next year? There have been a lot of questions about the infrastructure. A lot of promises made that it's going to kick-start the economy, etc., but there's been a lot of criticism from quite a few areas that the money hasn't rolled out.

I'm just wondering about the $829 million frozen for infrastructure. What was that for? Why did we not get it out the door? Is it just going to be spent next fiscal year?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Sure.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's the same for the National Defence. Do you know what the $366 million is for?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Sure.

Thank you very much, Kelly. I appreciate the question.

On the first question on the infrastructure funding, these are historic investments, $120 billion over 10 years.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Just get to the answer, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

But no, this is important, because as we move forward with this funding, it is in partnership with provincial and municipal governments—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Sorry, Minister, let me interrupt, please.

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

As we do this, the projects—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Chair....

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

—have to be ready to move forward for the funds to flow.

There have been projects, some specifics ones, for instance, the Jasper Place transit centre terminal renewal in Edmonton West. That was around $2.5 million. The West Edmonton Mall transit centre busway renewal was $1.7 million.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are they going to be done next year?

[Scott Brison, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The Jasper Place transit centre busway renewal was $1.2 million. These are projects in your riding that have benefited from this—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Chair.