Evidence of meeting #38 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was question.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Paul Cardegna
Jean-Yves Duclos  President of the Treasury Board
Roger Ermuth  Assistant Comptroller General, Financial Management Sector, Office of the Comptroller General, Treasury Board Secretariat
Glenn Purves  Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Karen Cahill  Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Rod Greenough  Executive Director, Expenditure Strategies and Estimates, Treasury Board Secretariat
Tolga Yalkin  Assistant Deputy Minister, Workplace Policies and Services, Treasury Board Secretariat

5:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

That's great. Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

We will have to get back to you with the number of vaccine quarantine facilities that we've funded. We have more information on testing and so forth.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

Okay, that's not a problem at all.

This was a success story for our region. I have to tell you that this program was absolutely critical, and I have to tell you as well that another piece of good news for our region is that we were able to provide about 6,000 vaccines to those temporary workers, those migrant farm workers. That was a great success.

That was great collaboration among all levels of government, but also among the Windsor Essex Local Immigration Partnership, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, the migrant worker community program, the workplace wellness for agri-food workers task force and 16 organizations. I just wanted to share that with the committee. Those isolation sites were a critical piece of our COVID‑19 strategy.

I want to ask about home checks; I think you raised the idea of home checks. What are PHAC's compliance targets for home checks?

June 16th, 2021 / 5:50 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

I think that PHAC would be best placed to respond to that question, and we'd be happy to follow up with them on it.

5:50 p.m.

Liberal

Irek Kusmierczyk Liberal Windsor—Tecumseh, ON

That's not a problem at all. I understand that some of these more specific questions would probably require consultation directly with PHAC, so that's not a problem at all.

Can you tell me something just in general? I know that the minister said that health and safety measures and COVID‑19 measures made up the bulk of the requests in the supplementary estimates. Can you provide us with some of the highlights in some of the health and safety expenditures in the supplementary estimates?

5:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Mr. Purves, I'm going to give you a couple of seconds to answer that, if you could, just to reflect for Mr. MacKinnon his point of order. Mr. Kusmierczyk gets a couple of extra seconds, although his time is up.

5:55 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Very briefly, of the $24 billion voted, about $11.2 billion is related to COVID. On the statutory side of the $17 billion in statutory adjustments that we forecast, about $9 billion is related to COVID, so that takes it to about $20 billion. About half of the total voted in statutories is related to COVID, and those items are earmarked clearly in these supplementary estimates.

5:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. Purves.

We'll now go to Ms. Chabot for two and a half minutes.

5:55 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a very brief question about $1.5 billion in supplementary funds for the Public Health Agency of Canada for vaccines. Are some of these funds for initiatives to develop vaccines in Canada or Quebec, like the Medicago vaccine?

5:55 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Thank you for the question, Ms. Chabot.

I don't have a breakdown of how much that would be specifically for domestic production. With respect to Quebec in particular, we would have to.... The Public Health Agency of Canada would have a better line of sight on that.

5:55 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Would it be possible to provide this information to the committee at a later date?

5:55 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

The Public Health Agency of Canada would be better placed to be able to provide the answer to that question.

5:55 p.m.

Bloc

Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Okay. I'll move on to another topic.

We know that some Government of Canada departments and agencies will be authorized to carry over 5% of their unused funds to the next fiscal year. According to a Treasury Board Secretariat document, it would be possible to request that a higher percentage of unused funds than is usually allowed be carried over from one fiscal year to the next.

To your knowledge, our many federal organizations likely to request a carryover of more than 5%?

5:55 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

Thank you very much, Madam Chabot, for the question. It's a great one.

You are correct. A portion of it that is funding that the government had authority for from Parliament last year that has been moved over into this current fiscal year. Then there's a portion of it that is dedicated to new initiatives. Of course, everything that is seeking payment authority on a voted basis in these supplementary estimates has been approved by Treasury Board already.

Typically, what happens in a cycle is that normally departments that are seeking re-profiles will do so in supplementary estimates (B), but given that many of these re-profiles have to do with COVID, there are more than normal, and as a consequence it's important to have them in supplementary estimates (A), given that they're vital for COVID.

5:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. Purves.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

5:55 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you very much.

When folks back home in Hamilton are tuning in to this and trying to follow along, they're looking for easy ways to have access to what's happening with the spending. I'll try to end this on a good note.

The PBO noted that while there had been a lack of publicly available information published by the government on the actual spending, there had been some improvements worth highlighting. It identified the TBS as providing monthly estimated expenditure reports to OGGO and that it incorporated data for the measures to include in the estimates process. As was noted in the opening comments, it was added to InfoBase.

My question is very simple. Will the Treasury Board provide regular updates of COVID-19 measures in one central document along with the actual spending data?

6 p.m.

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Glenn Purves

We'll continue to work with the committee through the motion that has been established. Of course, we always frame it as estimated expenditures, Mr. Green, because it's not actual until such a time as it's in the public accounts. We'll be working with departments to try to finalize estimated expenditures alongside the work that our colleagues at the comptroller general's office and finance and so forth are doing to finalize the actual expenditures.

6 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you.

I will yield the rest of my time.

6 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We'll now go to Ms. Harder for five minutes.

Ms. Harder, I see you, so your telecommunications have been fixed and you're back on.

6 p.m.

Conservative

Rachael Thomas Conservative Lethbridge, AB

Mr. Chair, thank you.

I actually will raise a point of order, because I wasn't able to turn on my camera to vote earlier. I was going to let it go and allow us to continue discussing with the department officials; however, Mr. MacKinnon found it very funny that I wasn't able to vote, and I take issue with that, so I am going to raise a point of order and I'm going ask that you accept my vote as yes.

6 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Ms. Harder.

We would have to have unanimous consent to re-entertain the vote.

Is there unanimous consent to redo the vote?

I am not seeing unanimous consent, unfortunately, so I can't—

6 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

I have a point of order, Mr.Chair.

6 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Go ahead, Mr. Paul-Hus.

6 p.m.

Conservative

Pierre Paul-Hus Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We are currently near the end of a parliamentary session and I would like to officially state, particularly for Mr. MacKinnon, who made fun of us by hinting that we can't keep our MPs in line, when in fact we were having technical problems. If the member was unable to have her vote counted on a motion proposed at a meeting of a House of Commons committee, it was because she was sitting virtually. This simply demonstrates the limitations of a virtual Parliament.

We need to remember that there are limitations on what we are doing. We should also remember that my colleague was not allowed to vote afterwards on an important matter.

Thank you.

6 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. Paul-Hus.

6 p.m.

Liberal

Steven MacKinnon Liberal Gatineau, QC

Mr. Chair—