Evidence of meeting #3 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 inflation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
[Inaudible—Editor] are investing the money into provincial and government bonds so they have a net debit/credit that provides a more clear position as opposed to ours that is buying natural assets.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
Some countries are just writing an IOU on their books without having set aside any money. That's why it's leading to debate, because, on the one hand, you have these countries not really setting aside money. On the other hand, in Canada, we have CPP and QPP assets that are included to reduce net debt, but are not really within the control of the government because they're set aside for a specific purpose. The short answer to your question is that I think we have to look at both net and gross debt to paint an accurate picture.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Just quickly, thank you, Chris and PBO, for all the work on the icebreakers.
What should this committee be looking for six months down the road? What red flags should we be looking at coming down the road for us? Is it having two different designs or delays? Do you have any thoughts for us?
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I think whether the project is scheduled to be on time in this state of advancement of the project would be something to watch for, because delays can often lead to increases in costs.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
It's my pleasure.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you.
We are now to our last person for questions.
Ms. Thompson, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you.
I'd like to read a clarification to Mr. McCauley's statement in the previous round. “With regard to the Treasury Board's departmental results report, it is reported that targets were exceeded for large departments to maintain a system of internal controls to mitigate the risks to programs' operations and resource management and Treasury Board submissions transparently disclosed financial risk to help cabinet make decisions. With regard to consulting costs, past under investments resulted in significant technical debt as IT infrastructure ages. Aging software systems can be costly to maintain, are at a risk of performance failures and are prone to service interruptions. Thanks to recent investment in critical upgrades and modernizing Canada's IT infrastructure, we've made continued progress.”
Could you please comment on the importance of investment to modernize IT capacity and the hard lessons from the previous government, which used digital transformations as cost-cutting exercises that saddled taxpayers with higher costs down the road and hurt the public service?
February 4th, 2022 / 2:50 p.m.
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer
I don't think I would do justice to your question if I tried to provide an answer to that, not being an IT expert and not having looked at that issue recently. It would be very difficult for me to determine whether investments in IT are appropriate or not insufficient without being an expert or having looked at that issue.
I know these systems are of critical importance from my years working at the CRA, where the assistant commissioner there did wonders to keep the systems together, but beyond offering that anecdotal comment, I cannot provide a reasonable or plentiful answer. I'm sorry about that.
Liberal
Joanne Thompson Liberal St. John's East, NL
In conclusion, I would like to say that for me, certainly as someone on the east coast, this is an incredibly important project and I certainly realize that in terms of cost analysis it has been difficult to find a ship that would really have the capacity of the current flagship, the Louis S. St-Laurent. Then to project that into the very exciting multidisciplinary scientific research of the proposed new vessel with the icebreaking capacity to truly be a vessel that really can navigate into the North Pole is quite challenging, but I look forward to seeing this project start in short order.
I do not have any other questions. You've been very patient with the cost analysis.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen
Thank you, Ms. Thompson.
With that, I want to thank Mr. Giroux, Mr. Penney and Mr. Elmarzougui.
I want to thank you for staying with us for the full two hours and for answering all these questions. We really do appreciate it.
I'd also like to thank the interpreters and the technicians for coming in today and being here for us so that we can hold this meeting both virtually and in person. Thank you to everybody for doing that.
To the committee, thank you very much. We said we'd stay on time. We're five minutes under time.
With that, I declare the meeting adjourned.