Government Operations committee  This is an assortment of what we call minor capital in smaller projects. Typically, anything over $100 million is classified as a major capital project, such as ships, planes and major weapon systems. Those will have their own profile in the estimates. Underneath that is just a

Government Operations committee  That's a terrific question. The short answer is no. When the estimates were tabled, when the budget was tabled, departmental plans did not reflect the priorities announced and the funding made available in budget 2018. That is—

Government Operations committee  Just to be very clear, the budget process is not based on the Department of Finance just doling money out willy-nilly. This is based on expressed needs by departments. The minister has written to the Minister of Finance requesting a certain sum of money to do a certain program or

Government Operations committee  Karen may have some detail on that. Mr. MacGregor, there are some elements to your question that are well beyond my remit in the expenditure management sector. You mentioned the monies already spent. The comptroller general did a report in the late spring that suggested an amou

Government Operations committee  I'm not part of those discussions.

Government Operations committee  That's correct. Budget implementation votes in some form or other exist in the provinces. We've looked at, from memory.... Manitoba and, I believe, Nova Scotia have elements of a budget implementation vote. As the minister has said, there are other models out there. He's especi

Government Operations committee  Mr. McCauley, I think this is one area where in fact we would share a common interest. Treasury Board certainly has a role in terms of the results policy, and we work with departments to clarify—

Government Operations committee  I agree that government is complicated, and I do believe that this is a journey and that suggestions from this committee in terms of improving results indicators would be very helpful to departments.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  Mr. MacGregor, this is a tremendously important issue. There was a great deal of debate, within this committee and elsewhere, in the spring. I don't know that a short answer will do it justice. The starting point is about improving transparency so that parliamentarians understan

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. McCauley. You're quite right that the monthly updates do not show a delta from one month to the next. That's something we'd be happy to look at, to show what the difference is. The key advance, from our perspective here, is in the quantity and the quality of the

Government Operations committee  I'd welcome the suggestion, Mr. McCauley. That's something we'd be glad to look at. I would simply caution that the estimates are intended to provide information about the authorities available to departments, and so we have focused on how we have made allocations from that vote

Government Operations committee  Thank you. That's a very good question, Mr. McCauley, because, in some instances, an item in the budget implementation vote is in fact a horizontal item.

Government Operations committee  An example would be Phoenix and the work that TBS and PSPC are doing to support the existing systems.

Government Operations committee  No. I will just be very clear here. Allocations from vote 40 can be horizontal items if we are advancing money for the same budget item to a number of different departments.