Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 22nd, 2022

[Michael Sabia]

You're asking me a question that has several aspects, and it's not easy to answer in a reasonable way.

I'd like to clarify something. At the end of my previous answer, I said that the government's view was that it wasn't necessarily a good owner for a project like Trans Mountain.

An important distinction must be made between owning a project that has already been completed and is stable, and owning a project that is under construction. In the case of Trans Mountain, it's only during the construction period that the government acts as owner.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Why isn't it a good owner?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Go ahead, Mr. Desjarlais. You have two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to bring the committee's attention to volume III and section 3, which is “Professional and special services”. I don't have the accurate page number here. It can't be page 35. You got there anyway.

Pertaining to the past five years, what trends have emerged about the type and cost of services procured by the federal government?

Go ahead, Mr. Huppé.

[Roch Huppé]

I can honestly say that in the last few years, what we've seen is the trend on health and welfare services because of the pandemic. We saw greater use of professional services for departments like Health Canada. The Public Health Agency is one of them.

When you take a look at the other trends, there's not necessarily a trend. As I was explaining on Friday, we have large projects on the go. Again, depending on the needs and the timing of these needs, what we could see is a fluctuation in the need for these professional services.

As I said, there's definitely been an increase in spending in the last few years. We see it in health and welfare. We see it in business management, business services and informatics services. Again, with a greater level of spending, you will see an increase in professional services.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

In relation to the special fees, in particular on special services, give me an example of a special fee.

[Roch Huppé]

As an example of special fees, membership fees and hospitality fees would fit under this category.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

To clarify, those would be hospitality and....

I'm sorry; what was the first example?

[Roch Huppé]

That was membership fees.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Does that mean membership and hospitality for those professional services?

[Roch Huppé]

Of those—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Is it contracted professional services?

[Diane Peressini]

Some membership fees could include things like fees for.... I'm a CPA. CPA fees are paid. That's considered a membership fee, so it's not professional services, but just within the standard object definitions, membership fees end up in there.

It could be some international organizations. I believe the OECD is one that we pay a membership fee to. That would be a membership fee.

“Hospitality” is events where non-public servants in general are provided hospitality, often for reasons of diplomatic purposes or things like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that is the time.

Our second-last member is Mr. McCauley.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

These are very interesting comments.

Briefly, I have one more issue, please, Mr. Leswick, with the CWB. Would be you be able to provide to the committee the GBA+ analysis, the regional and income quantiles analysis, for the changes made for the CWB, please?

I want to ask a couple of things. On page 74 in volume I, we see $5.6 billion in tax appeals, which is up considerably from 2021. Top of mind, do you recall what's driving such a large jump in appeals?

[Roch Huppé]

There's been an increase in tax revenues, so obviously—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It's not a 32% increase in tax revenues, though.

[Roch Huppé]

Part of the explanation is certainly an increase in the actual revenues themselves.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Could you maybe get back to us if there is something more specific driving it?

[Roch Huppé]

Yes.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Huppé, would you be able to provide to us the total amount of unfunded pension liabilities? Obviously there's the pre-2000, but could you provide all the unfunded pension liabilities to us?

[Roch Huppé]

We can certainly do that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I want to get back to trying to recoup money outstanding from CERB overpayments or CERB repayments and other issues. CRA, in response to a previous report on findings about post-verification, say they actually delayed their post-verification until January 2022. Do you know if there was an accompanying added expected cost in non-recoupable money because of the delay in the post-verification work?

[Roch Huppé]

What I would say is that at the time of the public accounts, when we closed the books, the official amount that was provided from CRA and ESDC was $5.1 billion that they deemed overpaid and receivable, so actually we took a provision on that. As I said on Friday, the work is still ongoing, and the expectation is that the amount will be higher than the $5.1 billion, obviously.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I'm wondering about the delay in doing that post-verification work and the effects if the CRA continues doing it. As stated, “ESDC began following up on high-risk flags, including those requiring identity validation”, but it was also delayed by about a year and half. I'm just wondering if these verification delays are going to lead to higher writeoffs and significantly higher difficulty in recouping overpayments.