Evidence of meeting #20 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was budget.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you, Mr. Giroux. That was well done in 60 minutes.
We'll now go to Ms. Thompson for five minutes.
May 13th, 2022 / 1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome. It's certainly been a difficult start to Parliament in terms of continuing COVID-19 and other challenges, so I'd like to get clarification on this year's vote 10.
The 2022-23 main estimates include $152 million in Treasury Board vote 10. Amounts are planned for the following initiatives: $107 million for COVID-19 vaccine policy implementation in the core public administration, including the RCMP; $24 million to respond to claims arising from the Phoenix system; $10 million for the modernized business applications and migrating them to secure data centres or the cloud; $7 million to modernize the programs and administrative services occupational group; and an uncommitted balance of $3 million.
Is that correct?
1:55 p.m.
Kaitlyn Vanderwees Analyst, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
The figure of $152 million is correct. For the exact breakdown, I would have to check.
1:55 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
If I could go back to a question that was asked earlier, there are just a couple of other points around a fixed date being adopted to table the budget.
As PBO, do you see yourself as having an educational role to prevent the confusion that was described earlier by clearly explaining the purpose of tabling the budget and the main estimates? Can you explain the difference in less than an hour?
1:55 p.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
1:55 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Certainly. It's always a pleasure to explain these fiscal and budgetary issues.
The main estimates and the supplementary estimates are the way by which the government finances its operations. Because the government cannot spend money that has not been approved by Parliament, it has to seek approval, either through stand-alone legislation—such as, for example, through the Old Age Security Act to spend in an ongoing manner for old age security, as one example—or it can seek approval for an annual spending authority, such as for the functioning of Parliament, of government operations and departments, and so on. There needs to be legislation to allow the government to spend. That is done, usually, through the main estimates or the supplementary estimates.
The budget, on the other hand, is a document that lays out policy priorities and the way the government will be exercising that authority and implementing those priorities, and that includes changes to tax policy and changes to policy that may not have any expenditure implications. Those exercises are not identical, but they are broadly similar.
It's not a very good explanation, I know, in a short period of time.
2 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
Many budget items require consultation to develop. That can't happen while protecting budget secrecy. How can budget secrecy be protected under your proposal?
2 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
The government could still indicate its intention to move ahead with something without necessarily indicating exactly how much it would be spending in future years. For example, if anybody wants to launch a new policy proposal or expand an existing policy and allocate additional funding to it, and do so only after consultations have taken place, it will require some time. There is nothing that prevents the launch of consultations before the allocation of money is performed.
It is not inconsistent. It would certainly require a bit more attention to the timing of those announcements, but it is not something that is impossible to do.
2 p.m.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
It may not come under your umbrella, but can I ask a question that was asked earlier on costing and the significant societal issues for housing?
Have you come across examples of social innovation or social finance becoming part of a costing structure in terms of expanding budget dollars? I realize that your work is not in the solving of problems, but do they creatively draw from resources to solve major or significant societal problems?
2 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
There must have been some instances of such innovative proposals, but at this moment, there's nothing that comes to mind, unfortunately. I'm sorry.
2 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you, Mr. Giroux.
With that, we've come to the end of our questions. I would like to thank Mr. Giroux, Mr. Penney and Ms. Vanderwees for coming today and bearing with us at the beginning. Thank you for your answers. We look forward to having you back at a future time.
With that said, so that the committee is aware, the order of reference for the committee study of the main estimates expires on Tuesday, May 31, 2022. If the committee feels that it has completed its considerations of the main estimates, we can proceed to take a decision on the votes that were referred to the committee.
In all, 21 votes in the main estimates 2022-23 were referred to the committee. Unless anyone objects, I will seek the unanimous consent of the committee to group the votes together for a decision.
Is there unanimous consent to proceed in this way?
2 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
2 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you very much.
Shall all votes referred to the committee in the main estimates 2022-23, less the amounts voted in interim supply, carry?
CANADA POST CORPORATION
Vote 1—Payments to the Corporation for special purposes..........$22,210,000
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
CANADA SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$62,991,464
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
CANADIAN INTERGOVERNMENTAL CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$5,613,899
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
CANADIAN TRANSPORTATION ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION AND SAFETY BOARD
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$31,924,200
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
NATIONAL CAPITAL COMMISSION
Vote 1—Payments to the Commission for operating expenditures..........$75,875,420
Vote 5—Payments to the Commission for capital expenditures..........$78,341,049
(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S SECRETARY
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$20,510,231
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENTARY BUDGET OFFICER
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$6,650,891
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
OFFICE OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$5,121,624
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$171,938,081
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$80,875,554
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
SENATE
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$84,536,860
(Vote 1 agreed to on division)
SHARED SERVICES CANADA
Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$2,161,889,344
Vote 5—Capital expenditures..........$339,296,808
(Votes 1 and 5 agreed to on division)
TREASURY BOARD SECRETARIAT
Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$320,060,709
Vote 5—Government Contingencies..........$750,000,000
Vote 10—Government-wide Initiatives..........$152,305,896
Vote 20—Public Service Insurance..........$3,195,856,257
Vote 25—Operating Budget Carry Forward..........$2,100,000,000
Vote 30—Paylist Requirements..........$600,000,000
Vote 35—Capital Budget Carry Forward..........$700,000,000
(Votes 1, 5, 10, 20, 25, 30 and 35 agreed to on division)
Thank you.
Shall I report the votes back to the house?
2 p.m.
Some hon. members
Agreed.
2 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you.
With that, we will suspend briefly to set up the next panel of witnesses and then continue with our study.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
I call the meeting back to order.
I'd like to welcome our new witnesses. We have three here in the room and one who is appearing virtually.
Before we start, I would like to say that the committee has expectations that all witnesses will be open about any potential conflict of interest that they may have. This is to ensure that the committee can fully understand the context of the testimony it is about to receive. If they feel their testimony may be coloured by a previous or current interest, I invite the witnesses to disclose this during their opening statements.
With that, we will start with Mr. Kendrick.
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON
I don't mean to besmirch any previous witnesses who have appeared in front of this committee, but to be quite honest, I don't think one of the witnesses at the last committee declared their conflict of interest when they appeared at the committee and made their presentation.
I think Mr. McCauley called them out on a potential conflict of interest. They were a perfectly nice witness, but they received money from the federal government to promote the value of shipbuilding, which is a direct conflict of interest, to my point, and should have at least posted it so that we know what they're doing. I know they are a promotional group for an industry. I'll just put that out there.
Maybe I'm wrong. I'll apologize in advance if I am wrong, but I think they should have made mention of that in their presentation. I'm not talking about any of the witnesses here today. I'm just talking about one we've had already.
2:10 p.m.
NDP
Gord Johns NDP Courtenay—Alberni, BC
Can we make sure that if witnesses sit on a board of a company and they're testifying on behalf of another organization, they disclose that as well, especially if it's in relation to this topic?
2:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you for that.
Just so the committee does understand, that's one of the reasons we have started reading what I just presented. It's so we can get a declaration of that, should it come about. We did not do that at the beginning, but we are doing it now for that very reason. When the report comes about, if you feel that there was an issue, you can bring that up when we deal with the report.
With that said, we will start—
