Government Operations committee  It would in two places. If you look to the public accounts, the liability is booked, so you're doing accrual accounting. The accrual part of this is the $6 billion liability that's already hit the surplus/deficit of the government over the years. That's the accrual piece. We do

Government Operations committee  You would have seen it when we booked the liability over the years, gradually. That's the key difference between the issues. One focuses on cash, so we're asking for permission to spend $850 million in cash. With the other model, you would have seen a gradual 2% a year on our pay

Government Operations committee  That is correct.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  I will start. In terms of surprises, if the idea behind the question is that supplementary estimates represent a surprise, I would like to assure you that's not the case. We will be bringing forward supplementary estimates (B) and likely (C). The reason that's not a surprise is

Government Operations committee  Thank you. Yes, I am absolutely convinced that we have the tools we need to make those decisions. At the same time, the critical thing for us is to understand what's in the budget and then track when it comes to Parliament for spending authority. So we do have the appropriate

Government Operations committee  Maybe I will start and see if colleagues want to offer anything from a departmental perspective. It does go to the heart of the role of the Treasury Board, and I'm not speaking of the Treasury Board Secretariat, but Treasury Board, the cabinet committee. Our system for expenditu

Government Operations committee  I'll try to be clearer, but thank you for the question. Quite simply, under the current regime, an employee...there are slight variations, but generally speaking, for every year an employee works, he or she earns the right to one week of severance. So if you think about one week

Government Operations committee  We're actually doing a follow-up on a similar question to the Senate finance committee from yesterday. If you want, I can simply have the same letter written to both committees, which will provide some additional detail for AECL. Is that fair?

Government Operations committee  It's a good question. I have a couple of points. The $6 billion is the liability for the benefit that has been earned to date. This is the amount that employees have earned under previous collective agreements; it is their earned right to receive that, and no one is going to tak

Government Operations committee  The liability for that was laid out in the budget. Going from memory, it's just under $1 billion, I think $900 million, so the liability has been booked. That is pursuant to the workforce adjustment directive, and that's separate from the voluntary severance. If you did have a

Government Operations committee  Severance payments, because they would cash out related to the reductions around the strategic and operating review, would not be included here. That's a separate amount.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. As you mentioned already, I am here with a few colleagues to answer any questions related to the government response to the recommendations in the committee's seventh report. As you know, the report contains 16 recommendations. Of the 16 recommendations, s

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think perhaps the best approach is to take it recommendation by recommendation, because it's hard to generalize what actions we will take. I will quickly run through the recommendations and the government response. I will turn to my colleagues from the De

Government Operations committee  What you would see if the proposed idea is followed through is a structure based on the current program's activities. Each department has programs and activities. The proposed idea would be to present a potential option for voting funding by information along the program activity