Evidence of meeting #5 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transformation.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:30 a.m.
Chief Information Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes, they have to be. Ours is very much directional, so that's the way we want to go. We want to ensure they get support from departments and agencies in understanding that, and then we'll work with them closely in the fall time frame looking at the transformation.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
The $56 million in savings that were figured into the 2015-16 budget were planned and laid out in what document, Mr. Parker?
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
Yes, it was part of a Treasury Board submission, when we presented the initiative—
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
It was a TBS submission.
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
It was an SSC submission.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
Yes.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Okay, so this was not a cutback that was initiated by the political level. It was a submission from the organization in question, three years ago.
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
We prepared a submission from Shared Services Canada to Treasury Board that contained a business case showing savings of $50 million.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
This was a business case presented by Shared Services Canada in 2013, not a sudden decision made in 2015.
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
Absolutely.
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Right. It was previously planned, previously laid out by Shared Services Canada, not suddenly implemented by Treasury Board or some political actor.
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
But in the presentation—
10:30 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
No, that was my question, though. My question was clearly whether or not this was a decision made based on a business case presented by Shared Services Canada.
Now, it is true that the government could have decided to provide an extra $56 million in order to reward SSC for failing to meet its deadline, but if we had done that, imagine the moral hazard, as economists call it. You'd be sending the signal out to the entire government of Canada that if you miss your deadlines and as a result go over budget, don't worry; you'll still get your $56 million. That would be exactly the wrong way to go, and I can't imagine that we as a parliamentary committee, which is supposed to protect the public purse, would take the position that government agencies and bodies should be rewarded with extra money when they miss their timelines, because ultimately, that's what we would have been saying if we had injected that extra $56 million.
Now, I would point out that this was not a decision by a political actor suddenly in 2015-16 to cut the budget by $56 million. This was simply implementing the plan that Shared Services Canada came to Treasury Board with in its own submission three years earlier.
My question then for Shared Services, if anyone wants to explain this, is this: when you made the submission and you said in your submission that you would save $56 million, did you mean it?
10:30 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
When we prepared the business case and we prepared the TB submission,
We clearly established a business case showing savings and
ongoing costs for $50 million if we completed the migration. Now we know we're two years delayed, but the savings were delivered before the—
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
But you made the commitment. You made the commitment to do it—
10:35 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
In the TB submission we did.
10:35 a.m.
Pierre Polievre
—in the 2015-2016 year.
10:35 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
And it's $50 million, not $56 million. The other $6 million is about the software.
10:35 a.m.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
But your organization made that commitment to do that in the 2015-16 year.
10:35 a.m.
Director General and Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services, Shared Services Canada
According to the business case, that was the plan to complete the initiative, by March 30, 2016.
