Government Operations Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Johns, go ahead, please, for two and a half minutes.

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

Mr. Giroux, as you reported, spending on professional and special services continues to increase, and it will likely keep increasing for the rest of this fiscal year.

Have you developed any formula or analysis that could explain to us how much the government could save by moving public sector work and services from consultants to the public service?

[Yves Giroux]

It's not something we have developed.

We know, by talking to certain senior public servants in specific areas—notably IT—that the use of consultants is much more expensive than doing the same work in-house with public servants. In that case, the issue is the availability of the skills and the expertise. In many areas, even if the public service wants to recruit more IT specialists, it cannot. That's why, in large part, it's relying on consultants.

However, we have not done this study.

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

If we cut a billion dollars in IT consulting, how much would we need to spend on the public service to move that capacity in-house? That's kind of where I'm going. Would the savings get even better over time, as the public service's capabilities increased? Might we save it there?

Is that something you believe would be a cost savings to taxpayers?

[Yves Giroux]

In IT, it certainly would be the case, because we hear from senior public servants that, when they have to go through consultancies, it costs significantly more than if they were to do it in-house with public servants. The issue is that they can't find the bodies to do the job in-house.

If that were possible, it certainly would be significantly cheaper. That's what we've heard from senior public servants.

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

Even the recruitment, the head hunters.... We hear of companies that aren't even IT experts making $11 million in commissions. They are just good at finding companies to do the outsourcing work.

Do you believe we could save money by bringing that role in-house and saving on those commissions?

[Yves Giroux]

It's not an industry with which I'm familiar, so I could not comment on that specific aspect.

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

Sadly, we're becoming too familiar with it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks, Mr. Johns.

We have Mrs. Block, please, for five minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll see if I need to use all of my time, because I know you need some time at the end.

Mr. Robson, in the brief you sent our committee a couple of weeks ago, you did raise the concern about the average citizen's ability to follow the government's spending and how this actually has an impact on their ability to know how their tax dollars are being spent. We've also talked about the need for legislators to understand the financial statements. I did appreciate the report card when it came to the various provinces across our country, and I'm very pleased to see where my province of Saskatchewan landed on your report card.

I also want to refer back to something you said in your opening remarks. You indicated that Canada is in a good place in relation to some other countries, and Mr. Giroux, earlier in the meeting, agreed that it was feasible to ask for more detailed information from governments.

I'm going to pose a question for both of you. I'm just wondering if you could point us in the direction of any other jurisdictions we should be looking at for perhaps some best practices, or better practices than we are using today, to ensure we are getting the kind of information we need as legislators and our citizens actually know how their tax dollars are being spent.

[William Robson]

Chair, shall I go first?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Go ahead, Mr. Robson.

[William Robson]

Canada, being at the forefront when it comes to the quality of our public sector accounting standards, can't as easily import from abroad as we could if we were in a worse position. What I would respond by way of what I hope is a constructive answer to your question is to say that, if you look across the jurisdictions in Canada, if you look across the senior governments and in fact even the municipal governments.... I criticized their budgets, but when you look at their financial statements, you'll see something that you see in the good senior governments as well.

You will see that when they publish their results at the end of the year, it's the entire statement of operations. All of the revenue and all the expense is on one page, a clean audit opinion, and in just about every case they have the comparison to the budget. Ideally, it is not restated budget numbers, which are a bit of a thorn in the side of people who are trying to go back to the budget to see if they actually did what they said they were going to do. In every case, just about, for the major cities in Canada, you will see the financial statements so cleanly laid out that way and, as I say, they get clean audit opinions.

I am happy, since you mentioned Saskatchewan, to say that Saskatchewan and Alberta produce their public accounts within three months of the end of the fiscal year. There's no reason that other governments can't do the same thing.

If you like our table, if you simply look across the governments in each criterion and ask what would happen if we were able to level up across the governments.... If Yukon can put the key numbers on page 8 of its budget—I don't have it in front of me right now, but it's something like that—if they can do it, anybody can do it. Anybody could do it. The federal government could do it in the upcoming spring budget. We can do a lot simply by looking across the country.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Go ahead, Mr. Giroux.

[Yves Giroux]

If you're looking at jurisdictions where it's easier than in Canada to reconcile the budget and the estimates process, I think Australia is a good example, where they have an integrated finance and Treasury Board equivalent. It's one department, so it facilitates the construction of their budget and the estimates process, making the job of legislators easier.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

[William Robson]

I'm sorry, but if I may, I'll just say that we have provinces that do the same, so it's not even as though you have to go to the other side of the world. You can look right next door.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Is there anything else, Mrs. Block?

I will note for my colleagues around the table that then minister Scott Brison, when we were studying the estimates about seven years ago, suggested that we actually go to Australia to study it, but we didn't.

We have Mr. Sousa, please, for five minutes.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to share a bit of my time with my colleague, Mr. Kusmierczyk, before I go into questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Mr. Kusmierczyk, are you reading this into the record?

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

As I understand, it was distributed by the clerk. Does it need to be read into the record? This is just a notice of motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Please go ahead.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

It reads:

That the committee hold one meeting on the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report entitled, “Costing Support for EV Battery Manufacturing”, published on November 17, 2023, and that the Parliamentary Budget officer, Yves Giroux, be invited to appear for the first hour, and Flavio Volpe also be invited to appear for the second hour.

Flavio Volpe is the president of the APMA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

We will turn it over to Mr. Sousa now.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Robson, it's good to see you again. It's been some time. I've always appreciated your input and engagement in preparations of provincial and federal budgets and economic forecasts. You are always a great help.

I want to acknowledge some of what you said today in regard to the fiscal stimulus and the counter-cyclical engagement of the government fiscal plan when it is going through times of crisis like we did with regard to the pandemic and our ability to sustain some of our spending in order to make certain it's by way of investment, like infrastructure—I think you captured that very well—or capital engagement, to ensure that we attract investment and growth in business and enable economic vibrancy.

Some of that input, of course, is via provincial matters. The provinces play a role as well as the federal government. The federal government has done quite a bit, but at the same time the provincial governments, especially during the pandemic, cut back quite a bit to the point that even prior to the pandemic a number of those provinces had their current ratings reduced. Here we have a federal government with a strong credit rating, and it has continued to maintain it. Some provincial governments have gone forward, and some revenue cuts were made. I'm thinking of Ontario, particularly, which I was part of and which reduced its credit rating. Consequently, it's been downgraded.

Mr. Robson, before I get into my real question, which is something separate around the pension plan, can you just reaffirm the direction and the priority that you feel is important for us to continue? Should we continue to invest in infrastructure and capital investment and secure, as my colleague has mentioned, Canada as a top destination of foreign direct investment?