Evidence of meeting #28 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was departments.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
We are thinking of adding up-to-date information to the public accounts that you will get in three to five months. So, then, there will be no more time lag.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Merci beaucoup, madame Faille. Thank you, Mr. Monette.
Mr. Christopherson, you have five minutes.
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you. It's good to see you both again.
It seems to me that through this whole piece there have been two aspects, and I'm talking as much to colleagues as to our witnesses. The two aspects were the request itself and the question of whether or not we got everything we asked for, and if not, why not, and where that leaves us. The second piece would be what information we got, what it tells us, and what we want to ask questions about. It's difficult to get to the second one because we never really got past the first one, so I want to return to that whole issue. It's very complicated, and I'm going to need you to explain it in the language of a layperson.
As I understand it, the government claimed a need for this special fund for the reasons that Mr. Matthews stated, and there were other reasons the money needed to be there, or was that exclusively why? I wanted to ask that. Could they access the money only if it was a new startup program and they needed to get going, and there was nowhere else?
Acting Assistant Comptroller General, Financial Management and Analysis Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
You have to look at the actual wording of vote 35, but from memory, it's around new budget initiatives.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
So that is expressly what it's for, and it's only for that. Okay, I got that.
There was a vote 35. We've asked for the expenditures on that, and your response, if I understand it, is that there aren't really any expenditures as a result of that vote. That vote authorized the expenditure of what other votes contained.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm saying it, but I'm not even sure what I'm talking about--
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
The one vote accessed those other votes, and the permission that was given for that expenditure was allowed to be made by the $3 billion fund if it fit those criteria, so our request was for all of the expenditures that are being spent under vote 35. Your answer was that “because it comes under all those other votes, I can't do that”. The chair responded this way, and I'll quote from his May 27 letter:
While expenditures may not be incurred against Vote 35, this vote is being used to support expenditures through other votes. Also, the Supplementary Estimates and the quarterly reports will be less frequent than the Committee had requested. Thus, the Committee would still like to receive weekly reports of what expenditures are being supported by Vote 35, even if those expenditures are incurred against other votes.
In plain language, what is your response to that, please?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
You got it exactly right, Mr. Christopherson. I think it's actually about 30 or so votes in different departments. I don't have the expenditure information on those 30 votes. I do have what was moved from vote 35 to those, but I do not have the information on the rate of spending on those appropriations. I just don't have that information. That's basically in the departments.
NDP
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
They would be in the departments.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Well, what you could do is ask the chief financial officers to report on that in their departments, and you could do a manual roll-up on that.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I could. There's actually a group at Treasury Board Secretariat that does some of that. It's not in my office. It's the expenditure management group. In preparation for the budget reports, they do have some of that through April, but to my knowledge, that's the most current information they have.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Here's my concern. I'm trying to get at the root of it. This was a dicey one for us as to whether it's germane to our mandate or belongs elsewhere. That's partly why I'm trying to suss this out.
The concern is that you're telling me it's sort of there, and there are some mechanisms to get at it, but you're not necessarily the one. That begins to feel like resistance, and that's always a concern. Again, if it could be found--you said there are some means--that sounds like a technicality, and that on a technicality there are no expenditures on that vote, so “Here's your letter and technically I don't have to do anything”. That always ruffles us the wrong way.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
I didn't want to make it sound like you didn't ask the question the right way so I'm not going to give you anything, because I don't think that's right. I figured the--
NDP
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
The allocation information out of vote 35, I figured, would be what you want. We do have the report here as at May 31. The next one will be the end of June. But I figured that at least that will show you the programs that it's going to, and then we can talk about how the due diligence is being done in those programs.
Once the money gets into those votes in those departments, it goes into our regular system. All the due diligence, the reporting in the departments, the documentation, the controls, and all of that happen when that money is moved. An allocation is like moving it within the government, whereas an expenditure is when it goes outside the government. It won't go outside the government until the department gets it.
So the way you said it at the beginning is right.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Monette and Mr. Matthews, for coming in today.
My first question is to Mr. Monette, the Comptroller General.
You've made it very clear in your correspondence to the chair that it is not within your capacity to provide the information as it was requested by the motion, because you don't process the information yourself. It's processed within the department. Is that correct?
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Okay. So you couldn't possibly have answered the question as it was posed in the motion.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's true, and thank you, Mr. Saxton, but I did want to give the allocation report as well to at least give you something, so that you had that.