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
What it would have meant is that a number of departments would have had to wait until June before they got their money to start doing things.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Right.
Your role here isn't to comment on policy, but presumably when the Liberals and the Conservatives voted to get things moving through this $3 billion, what was happening here was exactly what was supposed to happen. Money was moved into envelopes so it could then be expended. Even though Ms. Crombie and others have asked about the jobs, the jobs obviously wouldn't be happening without that expenditure relating to those programs.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, it's a cash management tool to allow the departments to have the cash, say, starting in April as opposed to having to wait until June or, in some cases, even December.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Right. So you got things going faster than they would have without that vote 35?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thanks, Mr. Weston and Mr. Monette.
Mr. Christopherson, for three minutes.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I've got to tell you that my sense is that this whole process is going to come to a four-wheel screeching halt, and I think there's a lesson here for us, because we knew we were getting close to something that was more operational than review. We've got two of these in front of us, this one and the Royal LePage one, where we weren't sure; we thought it was that....
One of the lessons I'm getting is that even when you're close to that, call it the other way, because we've gotten ourselves twisted up into all kinds of different shapes here over something that, at the end of the day, we're not going to get. At best, there are two more meetings of this committee left. At further best, the whole thing is done on June 30. So the whole idea of monitoring it with a guarded watch on the thing fell apart.
I have to tell you that I'm not hearing anything from Mr. Monette that is problematic. It feels a bit like splitting hairs to me as a layperson, but I understand where you're coming from. I don't get a sense—and I watch for these things—that you're trying to play any games. If anything, you're bending over backwards to show us you're not doing that. We're not even debating really any longer what might have come from those reports. So I'll listen, and if there's further action I'll weigh it out, but the lesson for me in this was that we should try to stay away from even getting close to things that are operational. We are very much a committee of accountability.
The AG is going to go in there, and that's where I'm going to have a question, and my question is going to be this. What other procedures have been put in place that are going to give us the kinds of review that help you sense what we were looking for? It will come to us after the fact but will be done thoroughly. So by doing this unique method, our concern is that nothing untoward was done during the questionable space between what we normally do and the way vote 35 happened this time. Those are my thoughts, and my question would be, what further accountabilities are built into all of this that will eventually find their way back to us and therefore to the public?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.
As you point out, the Auditor General will be doing an audit, and they're not going to wait until.... We're actually into the public accounts for 2009-10 now. So that audit would normally take place not this summer but next summer.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
May I ask you whether she has specifically said that will include the vote 35 ?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Absolutely. So she's going to do it even though it's not in the year; she's going to look at it. She's doing it right now, as a matter of fact. Treasury Board Secretariat has an internal audit on vote 35.
Bill is looking at—even though it's not in year, because it's starting the next year—what will go in the public accounts for 2008-09 in terms of disclosure after the year end. It will be in the departmental performance reports. When we get into next year's public accounts, it'll have a full detailing in all of the three volumes, just like all the other expenditures. It will have, in my view, as much as any other estimate.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I have one last question and then my time will be up.
I thought Ms. Crombie asked a really good question, and personally I thought it was in order. I always respect the chair, and if he jumps in, I'll deal with it then.
The question was this. If you don't have access to all that information to give us what we were looking for in the way we wanted it, how was the government able to come up with the numbers they used to make the statements they did about expenditures? How come they could do it? I'm asking; I'm not in any way attacking. I thought it was a great question. How could they do it when we couldn't seem to do it?
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Well, I know that in the latest update there is information on activity commitments and so forth. The Department of Finance has collected that in dealing with departments, and my office wasn't actually part of that process.
I know they had a lot of dealings with departments. I know that expenditure management group at Treasury Board Secretariat was also involved in helping provide that information. So I do know they had some liaison with departments on that.
NDP
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
It just wasn't something.... Again, Mr. Christopherson, to explain why I wouldn't be involved in that, my office wouldn't normally, and we haven't been in the past, concerned with the rate at which an appropriation is made.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
And that's really the reason. We want to make sure it's done properly, but whether somebody does it at a certain speed isn't something we would normally be concerned over.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Just to follow up on that, Mr. Monette, I want to clarify that issue going back to the motion.
What you're saying—and correct me if I'm wrong—is that you have a clear record of the allocations taken from vote 35.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
But once they get to the other votes, your department doesn't know how much money has been spent.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
We will know when the public accounts are done.
Comptroller General of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's right, but the departments have it. I wouldn't want to give the impression that there's not anybody doing it, because the chief financial officers in those departments do it. But my office wouldn't normally collect that.