National Defence Committee on Nov. 8th, 2018

[Julie Dzerowicz]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you.

The last three-minute question goes to MP Garrison.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The minister will remember that two years ago—I think it was in the supplementary estimates— I brought three of my constituents with Phoenix pay problems to this committee. I know you're not generally the minister in charge, but we still have problems, and Phoenix continues to generate new cases.

I have to say that the case of one of the people who came here two years ago is still not fixed. I also met very recently with a person in my constituency, a civilian worker, who is trying to arrange her retirement. Due to the ongoing problems with the Phoenix pay system, she can't get a statement of what her income will be on retirement, and so, until this is cleared up, she is unable to decide when she will retire.

We know Phoenix is still generating new cases. While I disagree with the chair's narrow focus here, there is actually a line in the supplementary estimates asking for money to address pay administration problems. I'm going to ask again: When can the civilian employees of DND expect to see an end to new cases under Phoenix and a resolution to cases that are sometimes two years old?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, it is unacceptable. When we talk about looking after our women and men in the Canadian Armed Forces, our civilians in DND are an equal part of that. As I stated before, we made a conscious decision not to put the military on the Phoenix pay system.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

However, I can assure you that we're leaving no stone unturned in our efforts to deal with this. Please give me the information again. We are probably tracking the files.

Any file that is brought forward is going to be dealt with. Nothing is being ignored. That's one thing I want to assure you of, because this is unacceptable and we will leave no stone unturned.

Do you have anything to add on that?

[Jody Thomas]

I support everything the minister has said. Thank you for the question.

Essentially, 100% of my HR team's time is spent working on Phoenix. We have 59,000 outstanding cases.

Unfortunately, with some of the more complex ones that go back two years, we have done as much as we can in the department. Then they go to the queue in Miramichi to be looked at.

We have now hired 150 people. To resolve our problems, we're re-establishing our compensation units, which we reduced when Phoenix was rolled out.

We're working very closely with our colleagues at PSPC and Treasury Board to do this. We're very active on the deputy minister- and ADM-level committees to try to find a resolution to the problem.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

I accept that the minister and deputy minister have, in good faith, tried to address this problem, but at some point a government has to be judged by the results. I have heard from some people who are concerned that they have become a squeaky wheel over their pay issues. They worry that, because they keep coming back again and again, it will have impacts on their careers.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I can assure you that it will not. In fact, we encourage anybody to come up if they have any concerns.

It's not just dealing with the current thing. It's a reminder to anybody in any future governments that when you start to look at trying to save money, you have to look at what the repercussions might be down the road. This is something we take very seriously.

Now, when we look at our defence policy and the implementation piece to it, with anything we do—any transition to a new software program—we make sure that we have the right resources in place to manage that, so that our people do not ever get left behind. The pension cheques were a big issue for us in the past. We have now brought that down.

This is something we'll have to keep working on very hard.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Bezan, go ahead.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

On a point of order, earlier in my questioning of the minister about vote 5a and that it was underfunded by $2.5 billion, as well as pensions being under by $2.2 billion, I believe the minister said there's going to be zero lapsed funding. I'd like him to provide that information to the committee.

I'm looking at last year, the 2017-18 public accounts, page 407, where a column called "Lapsed” funding shows a lapse of $677 million.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Minister, go ahead.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

With what you're referring to in terms of the $2.5 billion and also the lapse, we have not only showed a demonstration of reducing our lapses, but we don't have that.... See, if we want to go—

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

But it's actually called, by the definition of the Government of Canada, under public accounts—

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

This is not a point of order. This is debate.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

No, but I asked for that information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Fair enough.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

He said zero.

[Jody Thomas]

I'm happy to answer those questions.

The $677 million was what we carried forward last year in vote 1. That allows us to open the year. You can't carry forward zero. There is an expectation that we will have funds to open the books on day one, April 1.

Last year, we did not spend about $2.2 billion in vote 5. This year, we have that down to about $1.3 billion. At this point in the year, we are working toward reducing it below $1 billion by March 31.

Some of that is efficiencies. We've saved about $700 million on projects, and that's really good news. We've achieved and delivered the project for less money than we anticipated. That's in the $2.2 billion that you referenced.

The rest of it is projects that we are working to move. We're working with our colleagues at Treasury Board, PSPC, and PCO to move money and projects through the system more quickly. We're looking at our internal processes, as I said previously, to increase the speed with which smaller, less risky, less expensive projects can move through the defence system.

The CFO, my senior associate deputy minister, and the vice chief of the defence staff are running a program where they bring forward projects and move them through the system more quickly. They reduce the number of steps in the system, not to reduce the oversight, but to ensure that we don't let things sit for too long in the bureaucracy, that is, National Defence.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I also want to say, on a previous point we were talking about, that when you don't have enough resources to move those projects forward, this is what we're dealing with from the past.

My question to you, Mr. Bezan, is this: When you were parliamentary secretary and got rid of all those people in procurement, did you look at the future and how to spend that money? That's what we're dealing with now.

We are not only trying to increase the spending of more money and deliver for our people, but we have to now build the right structure in place to be able to deliver on that. It's a very complex task that we're asking of folks. I would like to thank them for the work they do on this, plus the aspects in terms of the carry-over.

What was the carry-over during the time when you were parliamentary secretary? How much money went back that had to go to balance the false budget you wanted to do on the backs of the military?

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Minister, thank you very much for your time. This is important funding that our military needs. I also want to thank you for your service to Canada.

I'm going to suspend so the minister can depart.

[The Chair, Liberal, Stephen Fuhr]

Thank you, everyone, for sticking around to finish off the rest of this hour talking about supplementary (A)s.

I'm going to turn the floor over to Mr. Spengemann, for the first seven-minute question.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for remaining with us for the additional time.

I want to circle back to the discussion we had with Minister Sajjan on our mission to the UN headquarters and the opportunity to engage with you in a conversation on the details of UN peacekeeping and peace support operations.

Would you give the committee your view on the implications of the Secretary-General's reforms, including the action for peacekeeping, the new peace support operations, the merger of the Department of Political Affairs with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and in the context of the estimates, the impact that will have for our thinking about peace operations as we go forward?

[Jody Thomas]

Thank you very much for the question. I'm happy to answer, and if the VCDS would like to weight in, I would certainly welcome that.

[Sven Spengemann, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Yes.