Government Operations Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Honestly, I would expect, just as a regular Canadian taxpayer, that you would have proper legal oversight. It just blew my mind when they mentioned that.

[Bill Matthews]

As I said, I will go back and read that testimony. I'm curious.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

It was Stephanie Tanton who said that. She was very clear at the Tuesday meeting.

The job of the Treasury Board is you're there to ensure things like there are provisions to protect the Canadian jobs in the agreement. Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

Again, if there's a program involved, which is a series of agreements, there would be parameters in the program that they would need to respect.

My recollection of Stellantis is that it's not a particular program, it's a one-off agreement. The broad parameters of that would not be approved by Treasury Board, they would have been negotiated by the department.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

You would have nothing to do with ensuring that there were job guarantees. Whose job would it be to ensure there were job guarantees?

From what I understand, the Treasury Board has to make sure spending is justified, risks are understood, the department has done its homework and taxpayers are getting what they pay for.

Whose job is it to make sure there are job guarantees or clawbacks if things don't happen, or, like in the case of Stellantis, they leave?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Give a very brief answer, please.

[Bill Matthews]

Certainly, Mr. Chair.

The department would be responsible for making sure that they had enough protection to respect the government's decision, in terms of whatever guarantees were established when it was approved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Ms. Rochefort, go ahead please.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I was pleased to read, in the departmental results, that the Treasury Board Secretariat had identified $9.6 million in spending reductions in 2024-25. I think it was listed that there were reductions in operations, professional services, transfer payments, travel and so on.

How did that affect your obligations to deliver on priorities or any significant projects that you might have had?

[Bill Matthews]

I will turn to my chief financial officer in a moment to just elaborate for a bit.

TBS is a very human-centric organization, so we are very heavy on people. We are not delivering programs directly to Canadians. Where we typically look for savings is just making sure we are looking at the areas of highest risk and consolidating where we can in terms of functions, and taking a look at some things that maybe we used to do in the past that no longer add value.

I don't know if you wish to add anything, Annie.

[Annie Boyer, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Yes.

I don't have the reference for the $9-million reduction in savings, but I know there's a $15-million reduction in our spending, because the Canadian digital service program was transferred to Employment and Social Development Canada. There's a reduction in our spending due to a transfer of a program to another department.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Well, just on that note, I'm equally interested in knowing how AI is improving the services of the Treasury Board.

[Bill Matthews]

AI is one of the interesting pieces that we are looking at throughout government. Every department is doing some mini-experimentation with artificial intelligence. At TBS, it's very helpful for us in terms of reviewing and processing. We have analysts experimenting with using it to edit memos, etc.

I think it's too early to say, “Point me exactly to where the productivity gains have been.” If you talk to colleagues in the private sector, they will tell you they're experiencing the exact same thing. We're all experimenting and all trying to figure out where the true production or productivity savings are. There's more to come on that in the future, I think.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

I'll just come back briefly to a comment that was made by the minister. I'd like to understand just how involved you are, for example, in the purchase of fighter jets.

[Bill Matthews]

It's national defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Defence Investment Agency, which is relatively new, that would be involved in that, along with partners from the Department of Industry, ISED.

Treasury Board would have a role in terms of approvals for contracts, project authorities and getting regular status updates. This project has been under way for a while. Where the department might be seeking additional money or a change in plans, they may have to come to Treasury Board, but defence has pretty broad authorities with PSPC to manage on a day-to-day basis.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Very good.

Maybe just give a final comment on the environmental footprint. Did you see, through your departmental results, if there are any comments on the reduction in the government's environmental footprint?

[Bill Matthews]

Treasury Board Secretariat has something called the greening government program or organization. It's a small group that is very much focused on reducing emissions from government operations, so inside government.

The two to highlight are that 83% of our light-duty vehicles are now green—so that's great; and then if you look at emissions from government buildings, comparing 2025 to previous years, you'll see that we've come down 42%, I believe, over the last 20 years or so. We're making good progress so that we're on track. The eventual goal there is net zero obviously, so there's still a way to go.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

My colleague here always says, “thank you for your service”, so I say thank you for those results. That's very impressive—good work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

We'll go to Mrs. Block for five minutes and then Madame Gaudreau.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Matthews, according to the TBS website, GC InfoBase, in 2024-25, Public Safety Canada set a total of 28 goals, and 14 of them are sitting at 0%. This is a department where 98% of the executives received bonuses in 2023-24, when they met only 35.7% of their goals.

The department is requesting an additional $43 million in supplementary spending in these estimates. Given that the Treasury Board sets the policy framework for how bonuses are awarded, what do you have to say when 98% of executives receive bonuses within a department when they haven't even met half of their stated goals?

[Bill Matthews]

Again, you would have to look at which goals are not being met and why. If there are goals that are not being met because the required approvals weren't taken, etc., or something was delayed, you have to really dig in and determine what the cause is.

In terms of those results and how we are monitoring at TBS, we are launching a new risk and compliance framework that will help us better assess how departments are doing in terms of where they are carrying risk, and some of those risks could be around delivery.

In terms of Treasury Board Secretariat's involvement in the awarding of performance pay to executives, that is up to the department's deputy head to make those determinations in terms of whether their executives are meeting what was asked of them or not. We don't have line of sight into those decisions. That is a deputy head decision.

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

The Treasury Board is responsible for setting the policy framework. When you see incidents like this, where a department is not meeting even half of the goals they set, regardless of what the excuses or reasons may be, has the Treasury Board had a conversation in regard to reforming how bonuses are rewarded?

[Bill Matthews]

Regarding performance pay and the link to departments achieving their published targets or results, I have not had any of those conversations. I can tell you that, in terms of the approach we take at TBS for our own employees, we are looking at whether the executives met the expectations in their own performance agreement. Some are tied to delivering on certain programs, and some are not. Some are more corporate related. You really have to understand why the targets are not being met and then the link to the executives before passing any judgment, I think, on whether there's a bigger problem.

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

Thank you very much, Chair. That is all that I have for today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

Madame Gaudreau.