Government Operations Committee on April 26th, 2022

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Indeed, I might have made an error copying the number down.

I was talking about the vote for compensation adjustments.

[Annie Boudreau]

In that case, it is indeed Vote 15.

This vote is for authorized increases provided for by collective agreements. Once a new collective agreement is signed, there will be increases. Again, these increases are mainly seen in the supplementary estimates.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Does that mean that there are no negotiations expected currently?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Negotiations are presently underway between the various bargaining agents and the government.

However, this won't necessarily have an immediate effect, because we may agree to pursue negotiations over the next 12 to 18 months.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Okay.

Going now to the Public Service Commission, we see a decrease of $1.5 million, which is not huge, but it's still a lesser amount.

There are also $7.1 million less for the School of Public Service. If memory serves, we hired more people. I might be wrong, to err is human. I'm trying to understand how we hired more employees when there's less money for the School of Public Service. We have to train the employees. Normally, it takes quite a while to train Canada Revenue Agency and Canada Employment Insurance Commission employees, for instance.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Before I say anything else, I would like to thank you for doing your homework. Your questions are fantastic.

We know that because of COVID‑19, the School of Public Service has been working flat out to try to pivot over the past two years.

Unless someone here can provide you with an exact answer, I would prefer to send you a written reply which explains the decrease that you can see in the report.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Minister. If you could provide us with that answer in writing, that would be appreciated.

I will now go to Mr. Johns for six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

Minister, today the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development tabled an important report regarding whether the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat led the greening government strategy in a way that supports the government's climate goals. The commissioner found that five years into the strategy, the secretariat's efforts were not as complete as they could be, citing a limited approach to risk management and missing information.

Because of this, it's not clear whether the government is on track to meet its 2050 net-zero target. How do you plan to accelerate efforts to green government operations and increase transparency to Canadians?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Well, first I have to say that I had a conversation with the commissioner of the environment last week, knowing the report was coming out. Of the five recommendations that were tabled, we agree with four of them and we will be working with those four recommendations.

As this is in the beginning of our greening government strategy, we have time to develop and address different ways of making sure we concentrate on the priorities we have identified.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Can you talk a little bit about what you're going to do to accelerate? I know Crown corporations have been left out and they're a huge greenhouse gas contributor when it comes to buildings.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

A goal in our greening strategy is to modernize the fleets with zero-emission, hybrid and alternate-fuel vehicles. We also have zero-carbon buildings and maximizing energy efficiency in existing ones. The third goal is to use nature-based solutions to protect assets from threats like flooding, and then to transition to a net-zero circular economy through green procurement.

We will be adjusting and working with these goals to make sure that we get to net zero by 2050.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

We're hoping that you'll expand into ensuring that all Crown corporations are included.

The strategic review of the public service is obviously a big issue right now, as you can imagine, especially for public service workers. The announcement that was made around the review and the potential cuts of up to $6 billion has understandably prompted concern from many of the hard-working public servants and Canadians who rely on public services.

The last time a strategic review happened, the Harper government cut service delivery for veterans, people on EI and many others. In fact, because of those cuts from the Conservatives, we're still seeing the backlog right now, which your government has failed to fix for veterans who have been injured.

Obviously, there's the Phoenix pay system as well. Nineteen thousand public service jobs were lost as a result of that.

As you can imagine, the lack of detail about this review is deeply concerning. Can you reassure Canadians that this review will not impact service levels and that the public service unions will be consulted throughout this whole process?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you for bringing this up. I'm actually really glad that we are moving forward with this strategic policy review. We promised it to Canadians, and we are keeping that promise.

As we know, this review will ensure that our programs are effective on challenges like climate change, the pandemic and growing our economy. It will also enable us to adapt our government to postpandemic realities, such as digitization.

This is a—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

The question, though, is whether it is going to impact—

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I'm getting there.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Great. Thanks, Minister.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

We want to be a smarter government, not a smaller government. For that, it's really important to say that our government has been increasing the number of public servants in the last seven years. We are going to continue to work with public servants.

I did share in the last two weeks, following the announcement in the budget, that we want to bring higher values to taxpayers' dollars. That is focusing on priorities, and how we can do better. How can we transform those buildings that are empty into, maybe, community living? How can we get those investments, that we're making right now, into better and smarter ways of delivering services to Canadians?

That's the review that I'll be taking—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I appreciate that, Minister. My concern is around service levels. That was the question, and ensuring Canadians that this review is not going to impact Canadian service levels.

We saw what happened with Veterans Affairs. We saw what happened with Phoenix, and the expensive outsourcing that's taking place around Phoenix, with expensive consultants trying to fix a broken deliverable.

In terms of whistle-blower protection, I'm going to follow Mr. McCauley. This government has committed in budget 2022 to take action to improve whistle-blower protections and supports for public servants, which is critical. The proposal is to provide $2.4 million over five years to the Treasury Board Secretariat to launch a review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. This committee, on which Mr. McCauley sat, did a review of this issue a few years back, and made some really good recommendations.

Why will it take five years to conduct this work?

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I've been clear that we are starting the review later this year. We're making sure that we are going to do this review. We have $2.4 million to start that exercise.

I want to come back to the report that was tabled in 2017, and the 15 recommendations. I believe you, and probably Mr. McCauley, would raise these recommendations as still being important in the review that we'll be undertaking. I will take into account the 2017 report as we do our review, and hopefully, we'll continue conversations with all parliamentarians as we do this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We've now finished our first round. We'll now go to our second round.

We'll start with Mr. Paul-Hus, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Good day to you, minister. Good day to your colleagues as well.

My question is simple. It's timely. The Parliamentary Budget Officer noticed a piddling $15‑billion discrepancy in the Department of National Defence's budget. The Globe and Mail published an article on this yesterday. Can you please explain how such a thing can happen? We're not talking about $15 million, but rather $15 billion.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

I am ready to answer the question, but please give me a few moments to organize my thoughts.

From what I understand, in the main estimates, we are investing a certain amount in National Defence.

We demonstrate that the difference is attributable to recently announced policy measures, including those in budget 2022, as well as funding that was previously approved, and capital projects that still require Treasury Board approval and inclusion in the estimates.

For specific details or projects, I would also invite you to speak with my colleague, the Minister of National Defence. That $15 billion will have to go through a submission to Treasury Board.

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

If I understand correctly, these are amounts that have yet to be approved, but they appear in the budget.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

In this case, the amounts are indicated in the main estimates. Treasury Board must approve them.