Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2009

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Hang on, Daryl, I listened to you, and I'll listen again if you want to take the floor.

This was corrected by the Auditor General. I want to underscore the correction and that Mr. Kramp was inaccurate in his recollection of our motion. We sent new information to the Auditor General and asked whether in her opinion that new information warranted this to be looked at.

Mr. Kramp, the impression was clearly left that somehow you were shocked that the Bloc, the NDP, and I, were somehow willing to help a Liberal who is now a lobbyist. That's a pretty strong allegation, and that's not the case.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

If I may, Mr. Christopherson, I was going to make a statement too. I'll just read the last part of the motion:

That the Committee ask the Auditor General to conduct an audit of the Integrated Relocation Program (IRP) as of April 1999, including the tendering and awarding of the 2009 contract, and to present her findings to Parliament.

As I pointed out when this motion came before the committee, we do not have control over the Auditor General's workload or her agenda. All we can do is make a motion. She and her office have their own methodologies on risk and what she will and won't audit. That was a recommendation and nothing more. We weren't going to extend or disallow contracts; it would be a performance audit on the actual awarding of that contract. That's certainly my interpretation of the motion.

Again, it's entirely up to her office as to the next step. She did indicate that she would get back to us.

Am I correct, Madam Auditor General?

[Sheila Fraser]

That is correct.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I would just note that this was not a unanimous request from the committee. Certainly there's no ill intent, but a number of the government members and I felt that this could open up a liability down the road for the government, which we've looked at again and again.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Fair enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Colleagues, it's 4:31 right now. We're down to probably seven or eight minutes before the vote, so I'm going to suspend this meeting. The meeting will reconvene immediately after the vote, so I ask every member to come back.

We apologize for the inconvenience to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We have seven people here, so we will start.

Monsieur Paillé, you have five minutes.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

If I am given the opportunity, I would like to share my time with my colleague, Ms. Faille.

I would like to come back to page 5 of the document you handed us. It states that the accumulated deficit is $463.7 billion, a $99.2 billion decline since the high-water mark of $562.9 billion reached in 1996-1997. Based on what I understand from the explanations of the Minister of National Revenue, there will be a rather sizeable increase in the deficit over the next few years.

Do you expect that we will exceed the amount reached in 1996-1997, in the short term?

[Paul Rochon]

I can answer that. The debt has decreased by approximately $100 billion over the last 10 years. The government foresees a deficit of about $56 billion for the current fiscal year and approximately $44 billion for 2010-2011. Thereafter, forecasts show that deficits will decrease in the medium term.

In absolute terms, the current string of deficits will more than offset the debt reduction of the last 10 years. However, that is a bit misleading because our economy has grown to about twice the size it used to be.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Are you referring to the GDP?

[Paul Rochon]

That is correct.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Very well.

Do we know who our creditors are? Do you know the percentage of foreign creditors? So half of Quebec's debt is attributable to Quebeckers. Do you know exactly to whom the money is owed?

[Paul Rochon]

First of all, the Government of Canada debt is issued primarily in Canadian dollars. However, debt is handled on international markets and at present, approximately 15% of the debt is held by foreigners.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

That means that 85% of the debt is owed to Canadians.

[Paul Rochon]

Yes.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

All right.

I have one last quick question before giving the floor to my colleague. Page 8 of the same document shows that benefits for children are the same in 2007-2008 and in 2008-2009.

Was there a re-orientation of programming for children or a drop in the number of children? I am wondering about that. Why is the amount for two consecutive years the same?

[Paul Rochon]

That is a good question.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

In terms of the percentage, there is a 0.1% variance. Nevertheless, while there is an increase everywhere, there is none on that line.

[Paul Rochon]

The $11.9 billion figure is accurate. It is the Canada Child Tax Benefit, in other words, a set amount. There is one benefit per child. However, it is indeed curious that the amount is exactly the same as the previous year.

According to the forecast for the month of September, the Canada Child Tax Benefit was to go from $11.9 billion for last year to $12.2 billion for this year.

[Pascal-Pierre Paillé, Bloc, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I'm going to quickly give the floor—

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You have only about 10 seconds left.

Do you need more time to give a more elaborate answer to that last question?

[Paul Rochon]

I think we just need to verify that the $11.9 billion for 2008-09 is correct.

[Bill Matthews]

It is correct. The numbers in the presentation are rounded. It's not the exact same number, but when you round, they both work out to $11.9 billion. They are correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Monsieur Paillé.

Mr. Shipley, you have five minutes.