Public Accounts Committee on Jan. 29th, 2007

[Dan Danagher]

No. I assume they would be eligible for one.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

You assume?

[Dan Danagher]

Actually, it's a good question. I'll get that answered and get back to you. I don't actually have the answer to that question. I don't know of any situation where that has happened. It's quite possible, but we'll get that clarified and get that information to the committee as quickly as we can.

[Graham Badun]

I could add to that. If somebody elects to have the real estate incentive, it prevents them from ever taking advantage of any other home ownership benefits. So it cannot happen repeatedly.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Those numbers look absolutely unreasonable to me. You say this is a logic model, but there doesn't seem to have been a lot of logic in thinking through this when you were originally setting it up. That you would have 40% of members who own their houses and that somehow 60% would take advantage of property management services just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

I believe you said 1998 was when you started thinking of encouraging people to use property management services. If this was a serious goal, I don't understand how nothing was actually tracked on this.

[Dan Danagher]

I understand in 1998 there was a national joint council policy, where the bargaining agents and government got together. In fact, part of the reason the goal was put in place was because we had about a three-year backlog of relocation-related grievances. People were unhappy with essentially being transferred to another place and then claiming expenses that were disallowed for whatever reason. We had a long backlog. In the years since the policy changed and we've gone this route, that backlog has disappeared. We get very few grievances today. In fact, we saw that the policy was having its intended affect.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

You also talked about the pilot numbers. Obviously you were tracking something. You were saying the pilot numbers were too low, but in 5.24 of the Auditor General's report, according to the Canadian Forces statistics, it says that out of 81,000 moves between 1995 and 2000—which seems like a pretty big number—183, or 0.22%, of them actually used relocation services. If you extrapolate the numbers between 1999 and 2002, when the first contract was being done, maybe there would be 40,000 to 50,000 moves based on those numbers. That's a pretty big number. That's not a small number. Someone was tracking the information, because the information is here.

[Dan Danagher]

Just as a point of clarification, what I said earlier is that the pilot covered all the CF, all forces, all military staff, all RCMP, GIC appointees, and senior government personnel at the EX level. It did not include the people who are non-executive members of the Public Service of Canada--the heavy half of the public service. That is around 200,000 people.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

But we are still talking about 40,000 to 50,000 people, probably, in that timeframe—

[Dan Danagher]

It's still a big population.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Right. And 0.22% were using the relocation services—0.22%—and you estimated the number at 60%.

[Dan Danagher]

That means 0.22% availed themselves of property management services via Royal LePage relocation services. We were unaware of the number of people who would have availed themselves of property management services and not reported that to Royal LePage, because they weren't obliged to.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

So you think that it would be in the area of, what, three.... I don't even know how many times that is, but—

[Dan Danagher]

No, it isn't. And the data we currently have demonstrates that those numbers didn't hold up. But it was a predictive model, and it's turned out to be incorrect.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

But you should have known that in 2002.

[Dan Danagher]

Hindsight is 20/20. We look at it now, and it looks as though those numbers were off. But the sense was that the program hadn't been given the promotion that it should have been given to encourage people, and that—

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay, so what promotion would you have given it that would have taken numbers from 0.22% to 60%?

[Dan Danagher]

I can't speculate about that. It's a good question, but I can't speculate and answer it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Danagher.

That, colleagues, concludes the round that we agreed upon, and when we started we agreed that we would look at the situation at the end of the round. I'm prepared to recognize anyone who has a very short relevant issue that they want to pursue for a couple of minutes, but it has to be relevant, because we all had a chance, and there has been some duplication over the last half-hour.

Mr. Proulx, Mr. Christopherson, and Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Okay, Mr. Proulx, go ahead, please, very briefly.

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be brief and to the point.

I want to come back, Mr. Badun, to make sure that the translation reached you and that you understand our problem.

Very briefly, Mr. Bélair, who is president of one of your subsidiaries or running one of your shows, told us last committee meeting that Mrs. Buckler had been hired in May 2005. Earlier in the meeting, I understand, you agreed that she had been hired approximately at that time. The registry shows that she registered as a lobbyist for you, in this particular case, on June 22, 2005.

So at the request of the Bloc Québécois, I would like it very much if you could tell us not only who she met and who she talked to, but also the dates these meetings occurred on. It's no problem for you, but we want to make sure that the registry.... You understand where I'm going with this. We want to make sure that she had registered and that all she did was done on an up-and-up basis. I'll be very honest with you: we have the impression--and we want to correct that impression if we're wrong--that her role was to talk directly with Conservative MPs who were part of this committee so that the committee would not decide early in the process to invite all of these guests, all of these witnesses, to explain to us what has been happening.

[Graham Badun]

I understand your request—

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Okay.

[Graham Badun]

—and I've made my position—

[Marcel Proulx, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Super.

[Graham Badun]

—clear on this matter, and I'll get the information before the end of the week.