Evidence of meeting #92 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 going.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
No, it isn't.
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
You're asking specifically where ministers of state—
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
Where are the salary increases to be found? In which vote do we find the increases in salary?
Marcia Santiago Executive Director, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
There is no salary increase. It's not part of this round of negotiations.
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
If your question is with respect to the ministers of state, those funds are provided by the departments in question from their operating votes.
Conservative
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
It's from their operating vote. That's why the vote wording is included for each ministry that could potentially have a minister of state or with or without portfolio, in the event that the prime minister makes a change to his or her ministry and introduces a minister or a minister of state where there had not previously been one.
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
That's fine. I understand.
I have another question. On May 30, Michel Girard, from the Journal de Montréal, published data that made radios in Quebec City panic. The public service benefits have increased by 54% in the past four years.
How can you explain this increase in benefits, which total $93.4 billion in liabilities?
In the past four years, there has also been a $33 billion increase in benefits such as severance pay, package deals for separation from employment, and so on. How do you explain this drastic increase in public service benefits, which lit up Quebec City's radios?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
Are we talking about the recent studies conducted by the C.D. Howe Institute, Fraser Institute and other analysts that refer to the total costs for the public service?
Conservative
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
There are several drivers to the costs of benefit packages provided to employees. There are price and volume factors. There can be increased costs for prescription medicines and certain treatments, over which the government has little, if any, control. With volume, as an aging public service or as we bring in younger workers, you can have costs at both ends in terms of medical costs and parental leave, maternity and paternity leave.
A further driver we have taken to this committee in the past consists of requirements owed to our veterans. There have been court decisions with respect to the offset of pension reductions, and there have been increased costs as a result of some of those decisions.
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
The final driver is interest rates. Some of our obligations are accrued, and as interest rates go down, the cost of future obligations increases.
Conservative
Conservative
Alupa Clarke Conservative Beauport—Limoilou, QC
—for each ministry that could potentially have a minister of state, with or without portfolio, how do you explain that it has risen way faster in the last four years, for example, than in the last decades?
Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Treasury Board Secretariat
I'd need a specific reference in terms of a study or costs, but those are generally the four drivers that we are aware of in terms of cost increases in this space.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Madam Malcolmson, welcome to our committee. I understand you have some questions of our officials, and you have five minutes to pose them, please.
Sheila Malcolmson NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity.
Thanks to my colleague MP Weir for giving me some space.
My questions are all for the Privy Council Office and in relation to the funding around the murdered and missing indigenous women's inquiry.
We had some fairly high-profile criticisms both from the Native Women's Association of Canada and the 50 indigenous leaders and family members. Quite a few of their questions were about the extent to which money is flowing to the inquiry and whether there are some bureaucratic interferences that might explain why the inquiry has been so slow to generate results.
I will just say the big picture is that we all want the inquiry to succeed and so none of these questions are meant to undermine its overall intent, but just to make sure that as MPs we're doing everything we can to set it up for the best success.
Do the commissioners have full access to the inquiry funding that the government has set aside for them? Do we have examples of times that there have been delays waiting for payment in relation to the inquiry because of the Privy Council Office approval process?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Privy Council Office
Mr. Chair, I will take the questions.
As I mentioned, just specifically with regard to providing funds to the commission of inquiry for murdered and missing indigenous women and girls, even though we're coming here for supplementary (A) estimates, and it's the first time we're coming for those resources, we've had enough resources within the PCO budget to be able to pay for expenditures related to the commission up to this point so they have not been without resources available for what they would need in terms of doing it. Have they had full access? Absolutely.
How we develop the access, the way we've come up with the fact that we're going to be using $34.4 million roughly this year, is by working with the commissioners to determine what their work plan looks like, what they want to achieve, and being able to come up with a costing. Because, as you're aware, in terms of getting money out of Treasury Board ministers it's about providing a work plan, identifying how the money is going to be used, and the timing that money is going to be used for. Yes, the commissioners have had full access to any resources they would have needed in terms of carrying out their responsibility.
In terms of examples related to payments not being made on time, I know there have been some challenges with regard to.... There is government process. We won't just say someone's going to go and travel, and they've spent $100. We actually need to see the authority for that spending to happen, we need to see the receipts associated, and we have to have all of those checks and balances in place before we can issue the money.
There have been challenges from the people who, say, travel for the advisory committee meetings, for the hearings, to get their information in together, to get it signed off through the commission structure into PCO for us to then turn it around.
We have put in two specific people within PCO. That is all they do. For anything that comes into the PCO in terms of procurement requests, payment requests, or anything like that, their only function is to make sure we don't delay the operations of their committee.