Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, AAFC, closely monitored all operating expenses and reported on them monthly to the senior management of the department.
Budget 2010 announced two significant actions to reduce the rate of growth in operating expenditures.
First, any salary and wage increases set in the Expenditure Restraint Act and in collective agreements for fiscal year 2010–11 until the end of fiscal year 2012–13 are to be absorbed by organizations. No moneys were provided to AAFC to fund the 1.5 per cent increase in annual wages for the federal public administration. AAFC is required to reallocate the resources from its operating budgets to fund these increases. Funding that was already provided in the department’s reference levels for these increases was returned to Treasury Board Secretariat through supplementary estimates.
The department has a ataffing realignment board that reviews and approves all external staffing requests to ensure that people are matched to priorities within available financial resources.
Salaries are monitored monthly by each branch against established maximum salary budgets. Second, operating budgets for fiscal year 2011–12 have been frozen at the 2010–11 levels. A subsequent freeze of operating budgets at those same levels is anticipated for fiscal year 2012–13.
To this end, additional measures were instituted that focused on travel, hospitality, and conferences. Employees have been advised of best practices related to travel in an effort to reduce the associated costs,for example, encouraging the use of video conferencing, use of the online booking tool, and booking of travel well in advance to take advantage of reduced-rate tickets.
In response to (b), during the 2010–11 fiscal year, 483 indeterminate employees, 462 full-time and 21 part-time, were lost to attrition at AAFC.
In response to (c), during the 2010–11 fiscal year, no employees were laid off at AAFC.
In response to (d), between April 1, 2011, and June 12, 2011, 71 indeterminate employees, 71 full-time and zero part-time, were hired at AAFC.
In response to (e), as previously mentioned in paragraph (a), the spending measures resulting from the budget 2010 announcement are affecting operating budgets in 2011–12 and apply across all programs.