Government Operations Committee on April 12th, 2021

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

There was a job description put out calling for two storytellers, who were hired by the Liberal government in the fall. That was also through the PCO. Do you think that $2 million perhaps went in part towards that salary?

[Glenn Purves]

It's not for me to speculate on the direction of the $2 million, but I will certainly get back to you on what it went towards.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

It's my understanding then, based on the conversation we've had today, that all of the information that has been requested by Mr. McCauley will be granted to this committee. Is that correct?

[Glenn Purves]

Yes, we will get back with all of this disaggregated information. We're absolutely committed to providing that transparency to the committee.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Perfect, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Harder.

We'll now go to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to Mr. Purves. It's good to see you again, sir. Thank you for all of the work you're doing.

There is so much that has been discussed around transparency. My understanding is that back in March 2020—which you mentioned a number of times—the department started to proactively collect this information. Can you share what role TBS had to make that decision?

[Glenn Purves]

At that point, it was very important, given the fact we were not set up as a system to actively track authorities or collect expenditure information based on an event, that the intention was to get the system as a whole moving in that direction and thinking about collecting this information on that basis.

As I've said in the past on this call, a lot of innovation has gone into collecting on that basis. We started with Excel. I think Mr. McCauley mentioned the first email. We've migrated to a system called Titan, which is effectively where departments input information. It allows us to be able to access it in a data warehouse.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

That's great.

I'll move on to Titan. Back on January 13 of 2021, the federal government published a guideline entitled “Titan Guidance—COVID-19 Expenditures”. This guideline is telling the departments, I assume, how to use the Titan system and what information goes into it.

We also have another system, GC InfoBase, which presents the information around spending authorities. You've often drawn a distinction between spending authorities and expenditure. For those who may not be familiar with Titan and GC InfoBase, can you shed some light on which system is used for what?

[Glenn Purves]

Titan is about collecting data from departments and having that input centrally. It's about achieving efficiency in terms of how we're collecting the data. There are various interfaces where departments can input their data and submit it along. We then have it in our database to be able to validate and do all sorts of assurances.

GC InfoBase is much more about the interface with the public, in terms of ensuring transparency with the public on issues such as the financials of the government—results and people. If you're interested in a department, you can go into all different breakdowns of spending and operations of the department. We have a COVID interface there as well, where we include the spending authorities.

GC InfoBase is [Technical difficulty—Editor] spending authorities in one place. That has been useful for Canadians to be able to access it. We'll continue to expand our use of GC InfoBase [Technical difficulty—Editor] transparency for Canadians.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Can you go into a bit more detail about the data that's being collected in Titan? For example, is it possible for me to reach out and ask TBS to give me information about expenditure at my riding level for anything that was related to COVID-19? I'm assuming that when you say spending by event [Technical difficulty—Editor], COVID-19 is an event and the spending is tracked. Is such a thing possible?

[Glenn Purves]

We don't have anything earmarked according to regions specifically on GC InfoBase. We have it more on the basis of [Technical difficulty—Editor] and the measure [Technical difficulty—Editor]. If you go in there to look at the COVID side, it has a link to [Technical difficulty—Editor] of the fall economic statement and where decisions are made. It has the actual authorities' panes there for supplementary estimates (A), (B) and (C).

We've also included the pane for what's in the main estimates for 2021-22 pertaining to COVID-19 for [Technical difficulty—Editor]. Parliamentarians and Canadians can access this. It helps with presenting questions to the various departments responsible for those measures.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Purves.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you.

I believe my time is up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.

That ends our questions for today.

I want to thank Mr. Ermuth and Mr. Purves for bearing with us during the the technical difficulties we had in the first part of the meeting. I appreciate your sticking with us.

This ends the public portion of our meeting. We will go in camera.

Members of the committee, you will have to exit and then re-enter again for the in-camera portion. You had the information and contact numbers sent to you. We will see you in a couple of minutes.

With that said, we will suspend the meeting.

[Proceedings continue in camera]