Government Operations committee  To get a really good understanding of the spending at VIA Rail over the last several years—and I will eventually turn to my colleague for some additional information—let me say, Mr. Chair, that VIA has had some additional cashflow from the federal government over the last few years, from time to time, because of shortfalls in their pension.

Government Operations committee  No, but if you're just extending out the profile by a year, then it's really not a reduction. The profile is different in terms of timing, but it's a fair question to ask. I will say normally the—

Government Operations committee  —the government has an excellent track record of forecasting expenses. Last year is a bit of an outlier in terms of the size of the lapse being big. You did mention the previous governments. If you went back to those surpluses, you would see that the surprises were always on the revenue side, not the expenditure side.

Government Operations committee  It was through a competitive process. It was $20 million. We got some advice. The final decisions were decisions for ministers. There were certain issues the government was facing where it was useful to have an outside perspective, yes.

Government Operations committee  Any department is free to strike a contract with the management consulting firm of its choice through competitive process or otherwise. The one you mentioned on the deficit reduction action plan actually did indeed go through the Treasury Board Secretariat as a department because they were advising TBS.

Government Operations committee  The actual advice...some of the initiatives we were looking for under the deficit reduction action plan were transformational in nature, so the thought was that some outsiders in terms of private-sector practices, other government, would actually be useful in benchmarking that.

Government Operations committee  I'm not sure what the private sector would spend on consultants. I would say that in the private sector, they typically tend to offer large dollar-value contracts, big items. My experience, and it's more anecdotal than anything, is governments tend to use more small-dollar, individual contracts.

Government Operations committee  They did not. They do not always use it; it's there as a safeguard, because if there is a crisis—let's be honest—to get supplementary estimates prepared and through Parliament takes some time. It's nice for them to have some quick funding that they can access if needed. In the previous fiscal year, they lapsed a good portion of that money because it wasn't needed—which is a good news story.

Government Operations committee  It's nothing specific, but I will say that during the last couple of years as departments have been implementing the deficit reduction action plan reductions to their budgets, they do need flexibility because they've been absorbing costs for things like severance and winding down programs.

Government Operations committee  Lapsed typically is unused, and I would say is typically for voted money. Statutory is just for information purposes.

Government Operations committee  Well the automatic rollover would be the 5% of operating, and we talked about 20% of capital. When you're into grants and contributions, which is part of the issue at Transport Canada, there is no such thing as a 5% or 20% for grants and contributions. Departments actually do have to make a case to say, “Yes, we need to reprofile that money”.

Government Operations committee  I have a couple of things. If I may return to your first comment, I will say, where you see money unspent—and I will get to your second question in a moment—in the case of Transport, the question you should ask is, has the money been reprofiled and submitted back for approval? In that case, in Transport's case, over $600 million has been reprofiled and is back to be voted on again.

Government Operations committee  Maybe I'll make one final comment on the statutory piece because your question was on statutory. If you look at the forecast, and it's wildly different from what was spent in the previous fiscal year, your first question should be why is it different? If it's because there is an increase in OAS rates, or an increase in GIS rates, that's understandable.

Government Operations committee  I understand the member's concern here because members often get very interested when it looks like money is being moved from capital to operating. This is a different case. These are the carry forward amounts where Treasury Board has a central vote that it allocates out to departments to basically allow them to spend money in the current fiscal year that they didn't spend in the previous fiscal year.

Government Operations committee  The accounting comes in when we're actually doing the books for what was spent. This is a mechanism to resource departments for what they can spend. But when a department spends money, if they spend it on operating dollars it will be characterized as operating. If they use the money on capital, if it meets the definition of an asset, it will still show up on the financial statements of the Government of Canada as an asset.