Government Operations Committee on March 1st, 2022

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

Thank you for your question.

When we installed the mandate policy, we mentioned that we would revise it after six months. During this revision, we will identify if we will change the definition of “fully vaccinated”. For example, right now—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm sorry. When will this be done?

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

Six months from October means around April.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. That's good.

Let me move on to the $4 billion for the rapid testing. There was $4 billion in Bill C-8 and Bill C-10. I understand that this is a duplicate $4 billion—or is this $8 billion altogether for rapid tests?

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

Mindful to make sure that Canadians have access to rapid tests, we have found—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Is it $8 billion in total or is it a duplicate?

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

No, it's not a duplicate. It's a path to make sure that we have access to rapid tests. We found two ways, and the way that we'll get faster—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

How much is intended to be purchased? Is it $4 billion in total or $8 billion in total?

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

It's $2.5 billion in rapid tests.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

But you're asking for $4 billion in the supplementaries. You already have $4 billion in Bill C-8 and Bill C-10. Why the $4 billion more? Supplementaries will die on March 31. Is it your intent to have that lapse or reprofile that for something else?

[Annie Boudreau]

You are correct that we have in the supplementary estimates (C) a request for $4 billion. At the same time, we have a separate track with Bill C-8 and Bill—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm aware of that. I just said that, twice now, and I'd like an answer to the question. Will $8 billion in total be spent?

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

No. It won't.

[Annie Boudreau]

It will be $4 billion in total, and—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay.

So if we approve the supplementary estimates (C) for $4 billion and Bill C-8 and Bill C-10 receive royal assent, what will happen with that added $4 billion that you're asking for? Will it lapse or will it be reprofiled?

[Annie Boudreau]

It will lapse. It will go back to the fiscal framework.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Why was vote 5 not used, the contingency? There is about $650 million unspent. Why was that not used? Why Bill C-8 and Bill C-10 and now the supplementaries? It seems very poor planning, or perhaps it's being used as a PR stunt by the government.

[Annie Boudreau]

Vote 5 is capped at $750 million—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right, and I think only about $90 million has been spent. I think there's about $650 million unspent between now and the end of the year. Why not just use that to carry over?

[Annie Boudreau]

We already used vote 5. We used the amount that you see in the online annex, which is $551 million. That amount was used to buy rapid test kits.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Okay. So the $4 billion will be lapsed. That's good.

Let's go to the departmental results. When you look at GC InfoBase, for government goals overall, 45.6% were achieved. That was the worst in three years. Treasury Board achieved 47.8%. I'm not going to blame that on you, Minister, but it's a poor performance by the department. I've brought up ATIP before: 31% of ATIP responses violated the legislated timeline.

I don't want to say that the results are dismal, but they're certainly not acceptable. What can we see going forward that's going to improve this? Again, overall government is getting poorer, and—

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

Thank you for asking that question. I think it's very important to say that our guiding principles are openness, transparency and accountability. With that, I have to say that we acted quickly to implement exceptional workplace measures to curb the spread of COVID-19—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Can I interrupt for a second, just quickly? I'm running out of time. You talked about accountability. Ms. Cahill will attest that, over the years, I have been very critical of TBS and other departments for not actually setting proper goals. In the departmental plans, probably one quarter don't have a target, or have no target to be achieved in this year. It's the same with Treasury Board. But here we have the departmental results being delayed by the government, I think three months from when they were actually ready, and the PBO has pointed out....

Treasury Board is asking this committee and parliamentarians to approve money when we don't even have the previous year's results published. We actually have them, but they haven't been published. We saw that with the public accounts, but also with the departmental results delayed.

I understand what you're getting at, but I don't believe there is an attempt at accountability or transparency.

I've used up your time. I'm sorry.

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

I do have an answer, so maybe in the next round I'll be able to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Minister, perhaps you can provide that to us in writing.