Public Accounts Committee on March 9th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

I'm hoping that we could come back to this line of questioning later on.

We are well over time, and I need to move on to our next questioner, Mr. Longfield, for six minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Sorry, Madam Chair. Actually it's Ms. Yip. She may be generous and share with me, but it's over to her, if that's okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

That's totally fine. Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Ms. Yip.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Sabia and Mr. Marsland, for coming today.

Mr. Sabia, can you comment on the ability of your department to digitize government services, and on how we can provide this efficiently and in a timely way to Canadians?

[Michael Sabia]

This is an area that, as I'm sure you know, a number of different government departments are working on. Certainly, it continues to be a priority from our point of view. The area of that that we're most familiar with and closest to is in the work of the Canada Revenue Agency to streamline and more efficiently digitize the interactions between individual Canadians or Canadian businesses and the taxation authority. That's an area where we continue to be focused, where we continue to invest money to improve those systems.

The same issue is true across a variety of other areas, such as customs operations at borders, where there are opportunities to improve and to reduce the level of friction, as the jargon goes, at the border by making them more streamlined. The same thing is true with respect to immigration and visas.

There's a whole range of areas where the government continues to be focused on that issue and where we continue to make progress and hopefully will continue to make progress over the coming period.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

It seems that so many of these large government IT projects are prone to not doing so well—I think of Phoenix. Do you think that there's enough funding there?

[Michael Sabia]

I can't comment on Phoenix.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Well, not Phoenix, but in your area.

[Michael Sabia]

I only returned to the government in the middle of December, so I can't comment on things other than having read about them in the newspapers, as we all did for a long period of time, so I can't comment on that.

However, I think it's a big task, and it's not going to be resolved tomorrow. I also think, though, that it's a very important task and part of ensuring that the country is well equipped for the future. From a Department of Finance point of view and from an expenditure allocation point of view, we continue to look for opportunities to accelerate that work and to continue to fund that work in a way that—everything is choices, with respect to an expenditure allocation—treats this with the priority that it warrants. Resources will be allocated to it on that basis, and I think they have been in the past.

As you know, these are big, complex systems. Having lived through a lot of IT implementations during my many years in the private sector, I can tell you that they're difficult in the private sector, they're difficult in the public sector and it requires a lot of time, attention and resources. I believe that the resources will be there as required.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Perhaps there need to be more pilot programs within the design of these IT projects, testing things out to ensure the stability of the infrastructure before you spend larger amounts.

[Michael Sabia]

I'm not an expert in what has happened in the public sector in the implementation of these programs, but doing pilots and taking incremental approaches to these things are all pretty much standard practices in large-scale implementations of systems changes. I'm sure that those best practices are being used by the government, but again, I have to say that I'm not an expert.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

You have approximately a minute and 15 seconds.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I will turn it over to my colleague, Mr. Longfield.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Yip.

Maybe I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Sorbara when that time comes around.

Mr. Sabia, with regard to the timeliness of responses that we're getting back from your department, we've had some discussions at committee on what's a reasonable amount of time. Some of our reports have been delayed as we've been waiting for responses. We're setting three weeks as a committee standard, asking for responses to come back within three weeks of our asking a question.

Could you comment on what process has to be followed from your end and whether three weeks is reasonable for most questions that we might be asking?

[Michael Sabia]

Again, Madam Chair, I've recently arrived, so I can't comment on the history because I honestly don't know what the interval of time has been, on average, in the department's responses to your committee.

Mr. Longfield, if you're able to contribute to my education there, I'm all ears as to what that period of time has been.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Speaking of time, I think I'm out of it, but we might be able to pick it up later.

[Michael Sabia]

Okay. I wasn't able to give you much of an answer there. I feel bad.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

We'll circle back. Thank you very much.

[Michael Sabia]

Okay. I thought we had six minutes, but I guess I misunderstood what's going on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you, Mr. Sabia and Mr. Longfield.

We will now move to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My first question is for Mr. Sabia, whom I thank for being with us today.

Mr. Sabia, during your brief opening remarks, you argued that we couldn't necessarily estimate or draw conclusions about the government's tax losses for 2017 because there wasn't much data available on the subject. Basically, these comments don't tell us anything and don't provide the committee with the clarification it would have liked.

However, the Office of the Auditor General was able to conduct a relevant and rigorous study over this period. Of course, this is still an estimate, but when I asked Ms. Hogan about it on November 17, she specifically mentioned that her office had made estimates based on public data.

So I'm trying to understand. Are you telling us that the Office of the Auditor General would have pulled the data out of a hat? Did the Auditor General fabricate these numbers?

[Michael Sabia]

No, not at all. I'm a little surprised by your question, but it's possible I didn't quite get the gist of it.

What I was saying is that, yes, in this area, you have to make estimates of revenue from certain tax systems and other tax systems, but that's also the case in several other areas.

The $160-million figure I gave you is basically the Auditor General's estimate. So I think the Department of Finance and the Auditor General are on the same page.

It wasn't my intention at all to suggest that the Auditor General made up such an estimate out of thin air. That's not the case at all. I think her staff did a good job, and we did the same thing in the department. The evidence is that the two estimates are basically the same.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

That's great. That answers my question, Mr. Sabia.

I would like to understand one thing. Earlier, you said that the Department of Finance conducted a detailed analysis of the Auditor General's report. Of course, it also says that the Department of Finance calculated the GST shortfall, that is, the difference between the amounts that could have been collected and those that were actually collected.

Does that mean that your calculations reflected the $160 million?

[Michael Sabia]

It's an estimate of the revenue that would have been available in a world where that aspect of the GST would have been in place during 2017.