Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the question. It gives me an opportunity to reiterate a critical point with respect to the first group of motions we are debating.
Government departments put forth their budgetary estimates on a three year planning horizon. These things are very public. They contain a tremendous amount of detail. The documents are very thick. Parliament gets them around February. They are looked at in committee where we essentially try to compare how much the departments spend each year. The hon. member is absolutely right. The key point is whether they asking for more money or less money.
I will reiterate what the increase would represent. It would be an $11.3 million increase. The hon. member is absolutely correct. Some $7.6 million of it would be for the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada, the Romanow Commission.
I will reiterate the point I made in my speech. I have held round tables in my riding as well as a large public meeting, as have other members of all parties. It is an extremely important exercise to be undertaking right now so I do not think one can argue the value of the $7.6 million increase.
An additional $3.1 million of the increase would be related to salary issues. This is something over which the administrative function within PCO has little control. Part of this is triggered by the salary increases we voted ourselves in here. Some of it has to do with the fact that the non-political people in PCO, the exempt staff, are given the same increases as unionized public service workers. It is not as if one can point to management and say it is frivolously driving up costs. It has absolutely no control over the costs. They are tied to other actions over which it has no direct control.
Some $2.6 million would be for the Task Force on Modernizing Human Resources Management in the Public Service. In government there tends to be a little lag with respect to information systems and the incorporation of new technologies. Government seems to move slower than the private sector in this regard. That is a good thing. Haste makes waste when one is making policy.
Virtually any successful company in the last 10 years has gone through a detailed period of self reflection where it has looked at how it is structured, how it manages its workforce and how it rewards its employees. Sometimes these things can get pretty strange but companies go through them.
The government is a huge employer. It has tremendous challenges in terms of finding, retaining, training, and motivating employees to do the good work they do. I do not think one can argue against giving it additional money to devote to that purpose provided the process of doing so is transparent and accountable and goes through the appropriate parliamentary committee and estimate process to determine whether it has worked or not.
Finally, $700,000 would be related to operational costs for the Policy Research Initiative annual conference. It is debatable, but I would argue that public policy is a field in itself. These kinds of conferences are a means of sharing best practices and dealing with how the challenges facing societies are addressed in public policy framework. I would be concerned, quite frankly, if our government was not investing in this type of information and these types of conferences.
The good news is that there is also a decrease. The $11.7 million is a net figure. There was $2.7 million less because of the sunsetting of one of the special initiatives undertaken by the Privy Council Office.
If we factor these figures in we have an organization that has essentially kept its costs in line. We have not seen extravagant increases in discretionary spending. A clear analysis of the data would demonstrate that in the last 10 years the Privy Council Office has kept its expenditures reasonable and under control.
When the Privy Council Office needs increases its members do not come and ask for a blank cheque. They do not walk through here with a wheelbarrow expecting us to throw money in it. The PCO has specifically outlined what the new expenditures are for. I challenge hon. members to identify which of them they would be willing to sacrifice on the altar of whatever fiscal policy they are advocating.