Public Accounts Committee on May 1st, 2008

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup, monsieur Jean.

I'm going to start the first round. The first round will be seven minutes, led off by Mr. McGuinty.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for being here today.

I'd like to go back to 10,000 feet for Canadians who might be following this very complicated field of green procurement and what it might mean.

Can I just get an understanding, first of all, of how much money the federal government spends every year?

[Daphne Meredith]

On procurement, sir?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Yes, and please define what you mean by “procurement”.

[Daphne Meredith]

It spends about $20 billion on goods and services in total.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

About $20 billion on buying goods and services.

Mr. Thompson, I think I heard you say the federal government is the largest employer in the country, the largest landlord in the country, and the largest single consumer of goods and services in the country. Is that right?

[Ron Thompson]

That's correct, sir.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

When our government set up the green procurement strategy for the country, I understood it to be based on the concept that we were going to reorient the ship of state so that when we buy those goods and services of $20 billion a year, and probably more....

I'm not sure how we arrived at $20 billion from a global budget of, what, $220 billion for the federal government, roughly? Does anybody know? Can anybody tell me what the global budget of the Government of Canada is today—just out of curiosity?

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, if the member doesn't know, I think it is actually around $220 billion. A lot of that, of course, is salaries; a lot of that is rent, commitments, and so on. But I think what the associate deputy minister is saying is that the actual commitments every year are about $20 billion.

I'd be pleased to provide further information to the member if he wants it.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much.

Does your $20 billion, for example, include the costs of operating all the government's buildings across the country?

[Daphne Meredith]

That's a good question. It would include many purchases related to maintaining buildings.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Leasing real estate?

[Daphne Meredith]

I think that number would not include leasing real estate, sir.

We have some numbers here—thanks, Ellen.

The way we break it down, real property would be included. It's actually more like $21.5 billion, the total number I'm working from, and from that there are real property expenditures.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Okay. Give or take a couple of billion, there's around $22 billion a year in government procurement of goods and services. Right?

The thinking was, in our previous government, that the physician would heal himself or herself. The federal government would show the way forward for other orders of government, other Canadians, private sector actors, businesses, and so on, and would begin by tightening up how it bought goods and services in the marketplace.

Therefore, if I understand this historically, the thinking was that we would provide a major demand pull in Canadian society to change the way in which we did things, that we would drive up energy efficiency standards; we would look to lead construction standards; we would do a full examination of who we were buying goods and services from, and, for example, even what their green performance or sustainable development performance was. Was that the general thinking when we set up the system years ago?

[Daphne Meredith]

The general thinking was that for a certain amount of the money we spend on goods and services, there could be a lot to be gained by using our volume to influence the market and the choices available, yes--not for, I would say, the $21.5 billion, but to figure out, through analysis, where we could make an impact with our buying.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Right, and thereby reorient the ship of state two degrees at a time, say, and set us on a different trajectory that would be considered to be more sustainable than less sustainable going forward. That's my understanding.

[Daphne Meredith]

That's right.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Okay.

Let's take a look at the text here; chapter 10, I believe it is. What pops up again and again in Mr. Thompson's reports, and through the commissioner's office now for several years, is that it's always difficult to understand just who's in charge of what. I understand and I sympathize with the notion of horizontal management, and that it's three or four departments coming together. PWGSC, I just heard, is playing a more prominent role now in leading this charge.

I want to table, for the interest of colleagues and for those who are here as witnesses, Bill C-474, Mr. Godfrey's bill. It's the opposition bill that is going to call upon Canada to create a new sustainable development act. Flowing from that would be a new office at PCO, and perhaps even a new cabinet committee where the buck would stop, where somebody would be accountable and responsible for driving this change that clearly isn't being driven through the 28 mandatory departmental sustainable development strategies.

If that kind of centralized authority resided in PCO, where they steer and don't row, would that help all of you achieve your green procurement objectives through the federal government? Could you help me understand this?

[Daphne Meredith]

I would say we have significant scope to make progress with the tools we have now. I'm quite happy to talk to the commissioner's report. We recognized his comment that we hadn't made satisfactory progress in some areas, and I think we are convinced that we can make more progress in those areas as it is.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Well, let me understand this chronologically. We developed as a former government three priority areas: building energy, vehicle fleet emissions, and green procurement. Then the deputy ministers' policy committee on sustainable development issued a report in March 2006, given up to the new government. Then in April they jointly issued the greening government operations guidance documents--nothing mandatory, just guidance documents.

Mr. Thompson, this April 2006 guidance document said that all departments and agencies were expected to commit to targets. How many of the 28 sustainable development strategies actually had green procurement targets?

[Ron Thompson]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. McGuinty.

We looked at all 28 sustainable development strategies. Seven of the 28 departments we looked at had addressed all of the guidance.

In terms of specific targets that could be rolled up, that one could hold a department to account for, very few, if any, had targets at that level of specificity. That's the problem; there was no clear expectation set at the beginning of the exercise against which departments could be held to account.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. McGuinty. Thank you, Mr. Thompson.

We're going to now move to Mr. Lussier, sept minutes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to everyone.

At paragraph 10.28 of your report, Mr. Thompson, you refer to 11 departments and agencies that are responsible for about 95% of greenhouse gas emissions. The Leading by Example federal initiative set up in 2001 was abruptly cancelled in 2007 even though interesting results had been achieved, such as a 24% reduction--very close to the 31% target.

I would like to know who cancelled that program and why.

[Ron Thompson]

Mr. Chairman, sir, I don't know, and I'm not really prepared to answer that. I wonder if I might invite one of our colleagues from the government to respond to you.