Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue No. 36 - Evidence - June 15, 2017
OTTAWA, Thursday, June 15, 2017
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 8:34 a.m., in public and in camera, to continue its study on the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018, and its study on the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018.
Senator Percy Mockler (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: Welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance.
[English]
My name is Percy Mockler, senator from New Brunswick and chair of the committee. At this time, I would ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves, starting on my right.
Senator McIntyre: Paul McIntyre, New Brunswick.
Senator Eaton: Nicky Eaton, Ontario.
Senator Marshall: Elizabeth Marshall, Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: Éric Forest from the Gulf region, Quebec.
Senator Moncion: Lucie Moncion from Ontario.
Senator Pratte: André Pratte from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Oh: Victor Oh, Ontario.
Senator Woo: Good morning. Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
The Chair: Thank you, honourable senators.
Minister, our committee is continuing its study on the expenditures set out in the Supplementary Estimates (A) for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2018. This morning, honourable senators, we have the presence of the Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board.
[Translation]
Mr. Brison, thank you for accepting our invitation. We are pleased to see the great cooperation between your department and your officials in the deliberations. You are always welcome to the Senate committees. That being said, allow me to introduce two other officials who are here with us this morning:
[English]
Mr. Brian Pagan, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector.
[Translation]
Renée LaFontaine, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Sector.
[English]
Mr. Minister, I have been informed by the clerk, Ms. Lemay, that you have a presentation to make. Following your presentation, the senators will be asking questions.
[Translation]
Minister and friend of all of Canada, the floor is yours.
[English]
Hon. Scott Brison, P.C., M.P., President of the Treasury Board (Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat): Thank you very much, senator. I'm pleased to be here with you and members of the committee to review the 2017-18 Main Estimates and also Supplementary Estimates (A), and I'm delighted to be here with both Brian and Renée and other public servants from Treasury Board, particularly during Public Service Week.
It's important to recognize the world-class public service we have, and I have the pleasure every day to work with an exceptional team at Treasury Board. I know that you as senators at this committee have had the opportunity to engage with our public servants. Sometimes I think Brian and Renée feel like they are members of the Senate sometimes as they are over here so much. We have an excellent public service. I appreciate every day the tremendous professionalism and strength that they bring to governance in our country.
After my remarks, I will be happy to take any questions you may have.
[Translation]
As you know, on February 23, the Government of Canada tabled its 2017-18 Main Estimates. These Main Estimates provide information to support the government's request to Parliament to approve $257.9 billion in spending to deliver programs and services in the fiscal year that started on April 1, 2017.
[English]
This is made of up $102.1 billion in planned voted expenditures and $155.8 billion in statutory expenditures. The voted expenditures include funding for priorities outlined in Budget 2016, including $7 billion in new funding for infrastructure.
Through these Main Estimates, the government continues to make important investments in the priorities of Canadians to help grow and strengthen our economy, to grow Canada's middle class and investing in priorities — of course, creation of jobs and growth — but also long-term innovation and infrastructure and post-secondary education.
[Translation]
I would now like to turn to that portion of the Main Estimates that applies to my department. The Treasury Board Secretariat is seeking Parliament's authority for $6.5 billion in planned spending — a decrease of $28.9 million from the previous main estimates.
[English]
Most of this, roughly $6 billion, is for supporting government-wide expenditures. That's the role the Treasury Board has as a central agency.
For 2017-18, TBS is forecasting expenditures up to the following amounts: $222.9 million for its own programs; $2.4 billion for public service insurance, which benefits public servants throughout the public service in departments and agencies; $3.6 billion in government-wide votes; and $367.2 million in statutory appropriations. These are in keeping with our responsibilities as the government's expenditure manager but also as the employer of the public service.
[Translation]
I would now like to consider the Supplementary Estimates (A) tabled in the House of Commons more than two months later on May 11. Mr. Chair, once again we are making investments in the things that matter to Canadians. Some of the major items voted in these estimates include: $446 million for compensation to First Nations for specific claims settlements.
[English]
$400 million for transfer agreements with provinces and territories to support early learning and child care, $235.4 million for national rail passenger transportation services that was announced in Budget 2017, $174.7 million for Operation Return Home to repair, rebuild and re-establish four Manitoba First Nations communities affected by the catastrophic flooding in 2011. These are major horizontal initiatives contained in these estimates. These are initiatives in which departments across our system work collaboratively with partners to achieve outcomes.
Other examples of this include $221.7 million for the Oceans Protection Plan to improve marine safety and protect Canada's marine environment, $195.8 million to support the targeted admission of 300,000 immigrants under 2017's immigration levels plan, $146.8 million for the Youth Employment Strategy laid out in Budget 2017, and $99.8 million to support infrastructure and programs for indigenous early learning and child care.
[Translation]
This year's Supplementary Estimates (A) include funding for 26 items announced in Budget 2017. Indeed, of the $3.7 billion to be voted by Parliament in Supplementary Estimates (A), $1 billion is to implement Budget 2017 measures.
[English]
Mr. Chair, we and also the Parliamentary Budget Officer recognize that this is less than last year. It is still significantly more than what was accomplished two years ago with Budget 2015-16 Supplementary Estimates (A). Part of that resulted from the volume. The previous year it was fewer items with larger volume. This year we had more items. It still represents an improvement over some of the previous years, and I can assure you that the work between the Department of Finance and Treasury Board continues to deepen and strengthen.
I'm sure we'll talk about the budget estimates process at some point in this committee. I do very much appreciate the expertise that this committee has on the budget estimates process and the interest they have in this process, but one of the most important things that we do is actually get this sequencing of budget estimates. It continues to be an asinine, absurd, ridiculous process to have the Main Estimates being tabled before the budget. It makes no sense. I think there is broad consensus on that.
Now, having been a bit of a textual deviant this morning, I'll go back to my notes.
Going back to Supplementary Estimates (A), Mr. Chair, I would like to draw your attention to the portion of these Supplementary Estimates (A) that apply to my department. TBS is seeking Parliament's authority for $625 million for adjustments made to terms and conditions of service for employment in the federal public administration in our role as our employer. This funding will cover retroactive payments and salary increases resulting from a number of collective bargaining agreements that were recently signed or are expected to be signed in the coming weeks.
When we were elected, there were no collective bargaining agreements in place with our public service. We have negotiated respectfully with our public service and the unions representing them to achieve agreements with 86 per cent of the core public administration, agreements with 156,000 public servants. We have done that over the last months, and it has been an important exercise to demonstrate the respect we have for our public servants and the unions that represent them. We have done that through a very productive collective bargaining process.
In the time remaining, I would like to address concerns expressed by some members of this committee, including salaries of some ministers in the voted estimates. I would like to explain why departmental operating votes have been used for this purpose, in fact since the mid-1990s, in addition to authorities of the Salaries Act. While the Salaries Act provides a statutory authority to pay the salaries of a specified list of ministers, the wording of the departmental votes allows for other possible scenarios, including the addition of new ministers or ministers of state who do not preside over a portfolio listed in the Salaries Act.
We're tabling the estimates at a certain point in time but have no knowledge of how the Prime Minister may change the ministry next week, month or next year. This has been the prerogative of prime ministers to reflect priorities of government and priorities of Canadians. There is a permissive authority for each ministry that allows the payment to each member of the Queen's Privy Council. If a department does not have a minister of state today, but it does have one tomorrow, it has the ability to make the payment.
This provision exists to allow for changes by the Prime Minister to the ministry. In fact, in March the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled that he was satisfied that the use of this wording was not problematic. He added that neither the form nor the content of the appropriation acts were at issue, but we certainly look forward to engaging with you on this and any other issue.
I thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank members of the committee for the opportunity to be here with you.
The Chair: Thank you, minister. Before we move on to questions, I would like to ask the deputy chair to introduce herself.
Senator Cools: Good morning, minister. It's a pleasure to have you here. I've known you for a long time.
Mr. Brison: We have been around awhile.
Senator Cools: Quite a while, but I won't be very much longer. Only another year and then I retire. Anyway, I know it's a shame, but there is nothing we can do about it. I'm looking forward to it anyway.
My name is Anne Cools for those who don't know me and are watching this. Minister, thank you for your labours and for your enthusiasm. You have brought a nice and welcome energy to your job, and I really want you to know that means a lot to people like us who sit here hour after hour working through the tedium, quite often, of the estimates. Of course, I thank Mr. Pagan and Ms. LaFontaine. I have had a long association with Treasury Board officials over the years. Thank you again.
The Chair: That is certainly not her last speech.
Senators, we have approximately an hour with the minister. Many senators would like to ask questions, so please be succinct and to the point. Senators can ask two questions on the first round.
Senator Marshall: Thank you very much for being here today, Minister. I also have to acknowledge the cooperation of your staff. I know that throughout the years, not only at the Estimates Committee but throughout the year, we do take up a lot of their time, so thank you very much for that.
I'm sure you're not going to be surprised by my question. I would like to know what the status is of the project where Treasury Board is working on aligning the Main Estimates with the budget. I just want to mention to you that both the current Parliamentary Budget Officer and the former Parliamentary Budget Officer have spoken recently to the Finance Committee and they have highlighted some differences. Based on what they are saying, it seems like we're not making much progress, or Treasury Board is not making much progress, on the project. Could you give us an update and some reassurances that this is on schedule?
Mr. Brison: You know this file well, having served in Newfoundland and Labrador, and I appreciate your engagement on this.
First of all, we have moved forward. There are four broad areas that we're working on in terms of making the budget estimates process more open and transparent for parliamentarians, but more broadly, for citizens.
The new departmental results framework is an important change. The previous reports done were read by very few people because they contained a lot of information presented in confusing and, in some ways, in pretty useless formats. We are focusing on what departments are doing and what results they are achieving. That is something that is a fundamental change. We are doing more purpose-based reporting, and want to do more of that, so that you have a better line of sight into expenditures, and we are doing reconciliation of cash versus accrual accounting.
In terms of the sequencing of the budget dates, I feel very strongly about this. We are making some progress. I believe we will make a lot more progress quite soon in terms of that.
I have met with parliamentary committees. This is my nineteenth parliamentary committee appearance as a minister in this incarnation. This is something I hammer through every time. I must say that, here in the Senate, there is a more constructive view of these things. Perhaps it's a less partisan approach, but I believe that in the house, I have had discussions with individual Members of Parliament in opposition who say, "Yes, this makes a lot of sense.'' Individually, they are quite in agreement with some of these changes. Collectively, something goes off the rails, and perhaps there is a certain tribalism in the other place that sometimes can make these things frustrating.
I remain optimistic. I believe we will make progress on this, because I just think it makes so damn much sense that, at some point, common sense can prevail, even here in Ottawa. I believe that we are making progress. I think that it will happen. I really do believe that. Even after 20 years in this place, I maintain some level of optimism and confidence.
Senator Marshall: My second question is: Why does it take so long for budgetary items to show up in the estimates? I think you mentioned it in your opening remarks. We have so many budgetary initiatives identified in Budget 2017 and I would have expected to see most of them in Supplementary Estimates (A), but the majority aren't.
Alternatively, when we're looking at Supplementary Estimates (A), you see, for example, employment and social development is looking for a certain amount of money. So you're going back to Budget 2017 to look for the initiative, and you find out it's not in Budget 2017 but Budget 2016.
It's really quite difficult when you're looking at the estimates and supplementary estimates and trying to trace it back to which budget. You're trying to cross-reference, and the information is not easily identified. Why does it take so long?
Mr. Brison: Well, there are 26 items from the budget, I believe, or 39 per cent of the budget, that were in Supplementary Estimates (A). That's not good enough. We want to up our game.
The work and the working relationship between finance and Treasury Board and with departments is very strong. Part of it was the growth in the number of items this time. I still say it's not good enough. We have to get better.
If you look at Australia, their budget and Main Estimates come out contemporaneously, for all intents and purposes. What that does is instill both a culture and a methodological approach in terms of their equivalent of finance, Treasury Board and departments that effectively brings together the Treasury Board submission process and the budget submission process. I think that brings greater rigour to both, and getting the sequencing right will be an important step towards that end.
It will take time; any of these things takes time. But getting the sequencing right is a major step that signals throughout the public service that we are serious about this. I am serious about this personally, and our prime minister and our government are. The current sequencing is part of the problem. There is no clearer signal we can send to finance, Treasury Board and throughout departments and agencies in terms of the budget process that we are committed to a more sensible and transparent process than getting that sequencing right. That is an important part of this.
But that does not obviate the need to continue to deepen the relationships. That involves work both at the political and at the officials' levels.
Senator Marshall: I do notice in your department plan that you have identified, as your primary risk, the slow pace of implementation. Thank you very much for those answers. I would like to go on second round.
Senator Eaton: Minister, this may be off the mark, but I find it interesting. In your funding priorities, you made no mention of the military. Last week, we heard the Minister of Defence, and the day before the Minister of Global Affairs, talking about hard-power rebuilding our military, which some people consider is in crisis. As you know better than I, governments of both stripes have been unable to procure military equipment in a timely way. One government cancels the previous government's purchase, or things are stopped and stalled. Do you, as a Treasury Board, have any say in how the five ministries make procurements? Do you oversee any of the spending? How is that done? Do you have anything to do with it at all?
Mr. Brison: I'll start with Chrystia Freeland's speech last week in terms of Canada's role in the world and more robust foreign policy, followed by Minister Sajjan's announcement of the new defence strategy. This comes with a significant commitment of funding, a 70 per cent increase over the next decade, but you will also see reflected in the next budget and subsequent budgets significant increases in defence spending.
I was at a military family resource centre in Halifax on Friday. The family resource centres across Canada provide ongoing support to enlisted men and women in the Canadian Armed Forces, but also to their families and to veterans and their families. The comment made to me at that family resource centre was it was the first time they had ever seen families of military and veterans addressed in a defence strategy. This is something that is very, very important. We have heard, through the most extensive consultations done on defence strategy, the importance for an effective military to consider the needs of military families and veterans' families. That's one differentiator.
On defence procurement, you raised an issue I have had both as a former Minister of Public Works and now at Treasury Board. I am now on the Cabinet Committee on Defence Procurement. Government procurement is murky, IT procurement is murkier and defence procurement is off-the-charts murky sometimes. I don't know what I have done to deserve it, but I seem to get involved in tough files over the years. Defence procurement is one of the toughest. It is highly technical and something where you are dealing with important needs to equip our men and women in uniform with the best equipment — not just for current but for future needs.
Today we have the evolution of technology to such an extent that we have to anticipate what the needs will be in 5 or 10 years, which could be completely different. That is one of the challenges we have. As a government, we recognize that defence procurement today — and how to go about it — has to be different than how things may have been done 10 or 20 years ago. We are seized with that reform. It involves not just defence but Public Services and Procurement Canada, Treasury Board and a group of ministers and public servants who are working to strengthen our ability to deliver the equipment that our men and women in uniform need and also to ensure that we are buying not just the right equipment for now but for the future. If you look at the potential for technology on defence, this is not an easy job. We are upping our game on it.
You are right that we inherit previous governments' commitments. We work within the confines of those commitments, as well as engaging in new procurement relationships.
But this is very different from when I was in cabinet 10 years ago dealing with some of these issues. It was a difficult file then. It is a more complex file today. We take it seriously and we want to get it right.
Senator Eaton: Have you thought of looking at what other countries like Australia, New Zealand, the U.K. and Germany do with their military procurement? They don't seem to have quite the trouble we do.
Mr. Brison: There are some good models on that. We have engaged, for instance, Steve Brunton, who is working with our government on shipbuilding. He has been deeply involved in shipbuilding procurement in the U.K., as an example. There are some good examples and there are best practices.
One of the things, when you are in a government and running a ministry, is that you are busy and under the tyranny of the immediate, but you have to find time to look not only ahead but also elsewhere for best practices from other places. That is something we as ministers are trying to do, namely protect the time and invest the efforts into looking at other models.
You, as senators, in terms of your research and your work, identifying what other countries are doing in some of these areas, can provide helpful public policy input to some of these complex challenges. I am being transparent with you. When we are dealing with the immediacy of government, sometimes it is tough to look at the broader picture. That is something we are doing, but any advice from you in this committee or senators broadly on this, and some of the research, would be encouraged and constructive and welcomed.
Senator Woo: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Brison. Could you give us an update on the re-emergence from the ashes of the new Phoenix and how that is going. Paint a bit of a picture of what the impact has been of the many problems we have heard about, that is, the impacts on civil servants and perhaps impacts on collective bargaining agreements and how the government does things such as how it chooses its contractors. Paint that picture for us. This may be an opportunity also for Mr. Pagan, who has given us a letter of clarification, to weigh in on that question.
Mr. Brison: Sure. I mentioned earlier government procurement and IT procurement and defence procurement.
We have a responsibility as a government — we are the government — to fix this. We are working hard to do that. There was a working group recently appointed by the Prime Minister and I serve on that working group, which is chaired by Ralph Goodale. We are working with officials across departments, particularly PSPC, which runs the pay system of government.
First, you should never waste a good crisis in terms of lessons learned from this. Then I want to talk about the solutions.
Regarding lessons learned, you don't try to cut costs during an IT transformation. That goes for business or government. The Phoenix pay system implementation was an enterprise-wide IT implementation. These are complex by nature. The previous government — this is not a partisan comment but a statement of fact — in its desire to create an illusory surplus on the eve of an election, was finding ways to cut costs wherever they could. One of the things they did to save $70 million per year, during the implementation of Phoenix, was to lay off 700 pay experts.
These are the very people you need to maintain a system. When you are bringing in a new technology IT-based system, you ought to maintain the legacy system until the new system is working well. In efforts to cut costs, they made the decision to get rid of those 700 positions. We wound up — and we are now — spending a lot more than that to fix it. The real price is being paid by public servants across Canada, in departments and agencies, summer students in some cases and new entrants to the public service. They are suffering as a result of the problems with the Phoenix pay system.
From the outside, it looks like "just fix it. " However, I am impatient at the best of times. I think Renée and Brian, who sometimes receive my 5 a.m. emails, can tell you I am an impatient person. I am frustrated with the complexity of this problem, but I am and we are seized with fixing this. There is a systems issue in terms of a human resource issue, and it is across departments and agencies. There is the integration between people and the actual system.
We are engaging with IBM, the provider of the system. IBM needs to recognize that they have a vested interest in working closely with the Government of Canada and helping us fix this. IBM, as a sophisticated global company, needs to recognize that we, as the Government of Canada, are not just an important client for IBM but that there is reputational risk for IBM in not helping us fix this and doing everything they can to help us fix this.
Healthcare.gov in the U.S. was the worst IT failure in the U.S. government's history, and the Obama government did not waste that crisis. They came up with a response of U.S. government digital services, including 18F, which was a fundamentally different approach to doing digital as government.
We are doing the same. We are moving forward to establish the Canadian digital services, and we will do digital better and we will provide world-class digital services to the employees of the Government of Canada and to the citizens of Canada.
But we have to fix Phoenix. As I said earlier, we, as Treasury Board, are the employer. I personally take this responsibility very seriously. We have a responsibility to fix this. IBM needs to be an active partner, working closely with us. They have, as the vendor of this technology, a responsibility to help us to fix this. My message to all partners in this, including private sector players like IBM, is that we need to work together and to apply our resources to fixing this. This is not a time for finger pointing. This is a time for getting it done. We have a world-class public service that deserves to be paid on time and accurately. We are going to get that done.
It is one of the most complex implementations that I have ever seen. It is one of the biggest pay system transformations ever conducted anywhere, and there were fundamental mistakes in the implementation. That doesn't obviate our need. We are the government. We have a responsibility to fix it. IBM, as the service provider, has a responsibility to work with us as a partner in this, and we are partnering with public service. We are working with them. I need the full engagement and support of public service unions. My message to our public service unions and my friends at PSAC and PIPSC is that there is no lack of will to fix this in our government. We need to partner with the public service unions, the public service and the private sector involved in providing this system to the Government of Canada. It is not a time to point fingers. It is the time to get this fixed, and that is exactly what we're going to do.
Senator Woo: Thank you, minister. If I could just follow up quickly — I know Mr. Pagan may want to jump in as well after this — I really appreciate your comment about not letting a good crisis go to waste. Just to clarify, do you feel that you have clearly identified where and what the problem was? You talked about the transition problems, maybe system problems themselves, maybe lack of understanding of the system. Are you confident that the collective "you,'' the collective "we,'' have understood what went wrong? If so, will there be a formal post-mortem, if I can put it that way, so that, again, the collective "we'' can draw lessons from it and do what you said — not let a good crisis go to waste by coming up with some new ideas and new ways of doing things? Then maybe Mr. Pagan wants to jump in after that.
Mr. Brison: First, we have a greater clarity now on the mistakes made in the implementation and what happened. That is informing a way forward. Understanding what happened is easier than fixing these things sometimes.
We are putting every resource into fixing this, including engaging people who understand these systems and have worked in these kinds of transformations elsewhere, and identifying specifically individual changes that need to be made. We have put more resources. Parliamentary Secretary Steve McKinnon has recently announced some of the resources. I think it was $142 million announced recently — $116 million put into pay operations and $26 million for a case management tool. I believe we will put more resources into fixing this than the amount that was saved by the previous government. We will because we have to fix this.
It is not just a matter of resources; it is applying the right resources to the right parts of the system. There is a human resource system across government. There's the data entry part of it and the integration to the system to ensure that the system is working well. There is the IT part of it.
On the broader issue of digital government, other countries have really changed how they do things. If you look at the U.K. government's digital services established in 2011, if you look at the U.S. government's digital services or Australia's, they went through some of these same big problems that we are going through. Governments do this. Sobey's, for goodness sake, had a $100 million writeoff a few years ago on an IT issue. Companies do; governments do. But they fundamentally changed how they procure digital. The old style digital, the waterfall procurement style approaches, basically meant that you had one of 10 or 12 global IT companies that would work with you. They would tell you what they were going to do. You would get two years into the contract, and you'd discover that they would say, "You didn't really tell us that.'' You'd say, "We thought we had.'' So they say, "You're not a very good client,'' and we say, "You're not a very good server.'' It is like a bad marriage. You're two years into it and both have overestimated their capacities, and it's hard to get out of it.
In terms of modern digital, it is less blind marriages and more constant dating with more agile digital providers. This is not only good in terms of results for IT of government, it is also good as part of our innovation strategy because it enables smaller companies to participate in government IT procurement.
I had a meeting last week with Tobi Lütke from Shopify. He and I were talking about the idea, with our new government digital services, of developing an app for immigration. I have talked to Ahmad Hussen, our minister, and, right now, about 50 per cent of the Access to Information requests in to the Government of Canada are people checking the status of their immigration. The Access to Information regime was never designed for that. But think of it: Could we work with innovators like Tobi Lütke, who actually did immigrate to Canada, and work with Canadian digital services, the new digital delivery unit within Treasury Board, and with Immigration to develop that? These are the kinds of things we are looking at in terms of agile digital delivery.
Right now, Canadians are wondering why they can't get the same quality of digital services when they want to renew their passport that they get from Amazon when they buy a book. In the private sector, you are either digital or dead. In government, if you can't do digital services well, your relationship with your citizens is imperiled. Your connection to your citizens is jeopardized. We have a responsibility, in terms of providing world-class digital services, both to government employees, including getting paid on time, and also to citizens. We're going to get this done. But, on getting the Phoenix system, we have to make sure this one rises out of the ashes.
Brian Pagan, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat: Senator Woo alluded to a letter that has been circulated that simply clarifies comments and costs that I cited at my last appearance on May 31. I wanted to make sure that the record was clear. Senator Pratte had asked about the cost of collective bargaining, and, unfortunately, I did mix up the number.
The collective bargaining pattern is 1.25 per cent over four years. The retroactive cost of that was included in Supplementary Estimates (A), and that is $625 million. The ongoing cost, the annual increment, is approximately $875 million. That is a forecast because we need to conclude the remaining 13 or 14 per cent of collective bargaining.
With respect to Phoenix, at the time of my appearance, we had 19 tentative agreements. Six had been signed and were in the process of being implemented and processed through Phoenix. Three had actually been processed, and about 90 per cent of those three agreements has been successfully processed through the Phoenix system.
I just wanted to make sure that the committee understood those numbers.
The Chair: Mr. Pagan, thank you for responding. As always, you have shown great leadership in responding to our demands and requests from the senators.
Before I recognize Senator Forest, I would like to ask Senator Andreychuk to introduce herself. She just joined us.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you. You have introduced me quite well. I am from Saskatchewan. It is good to see the minister again and again here.
The Chair: As matter of fact, it is his nineteenth appearance at committees since being at the ministry.
Mr. Brison: Senator Mockler, part of that comes from my respect for Parliament, for the Senate and for the house. Part of that comes from the fact I recently had my twentieth anniversary of my first election in 1997 on June 2. I spent 20 years being a parliamentarian, three as a member of a government, so almost 17 years in opposition. Not one of those years was wasted because parliamentarians, whether in the Senate or in the house, have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of Canadians. We have to remind people of that every day. I hope that I provide some optimism to parliamentarians in both places when I say sincerely that there is a great opportunity we have individually and collectively to drive change as parliamentarians — not just as ministers but as parliamentarians.
The Chair: I can assure you, minister, as I introduce Senator Forest, that in public life, people don't care who you are until they know what you care for, and we know what you care for. I want to share that with you, from my experience in public life.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: Thank you for being here, Mr. Minister, and, above all, for your openness. My first question is about your new results-oriented framework. I was talking to Mr. Pagan when we were studying the supplementary estimates. Having administered budgets with many fewer zeros, but also with the objective of managing public funds more efficiently, I was very surprised to see that, two months after the budget was tabled, such a major sum could have been overlooked in such a short time. One of the things I recall was with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which needed an additional $658 million in order to provide its clients with essential services. Then, I was just as astonished when a department like Indigenous and Northern Affairs was not able, at the end of a financial year, to find a use for $1 billion when the needs are enormous.
Given those two cases, where are you in your initiative to implement a new results-oriented framework?
Mr. Brison: Thank you for the question. Our policy on results fundamentally changes our approach as a government. In the past, governments focused on the process, not on the results.
That's very important for our government and it's part of my mandate as minister. It's also the case for all the other ministers when they receive their mandate letters. Our ability to deliver results is important, because it is a priority for our Prime Minister. We have changed the results framework. In the past, the system was not clear and we did not have easy access to information. We are trying now to simplify the methodology and make it make sense. For instance, we determine the objectives for a given department or agency. After some months or a year, we look at the results. We have to have a clear idea of the objectives. This means that we have to fully understand the results. The indicators reflect the objectives of governments.
[English]
In the past, the indicators used may have made sense to someone within the government, but they didn't make sense to anybody outside of government. Part of it is more user-focused government, even in the development of the services we provide.
This goes back to an earlier conversation on the digital services as an example. One of the keys to quality digital services is understanding client needs. This is important too as we are developing results frameworks because we actually have to understand what Canadians want to know. What are their priorities? Is it speeding up a passport application? For a lot of Canadians, that is important. Is it the filing of their income tax? The biggest interaction Canadians have with their government is with income tax. What would be helpful to Canadians? We all know we have a complex tax system — some would say way too complex — but so is the process with which Canadians need to engage to fill out their taxes. How can we simplify that process?
[Translation]
You have a good grasp of the changes, but it's a —
[English]
— work in progress. It is an ever-greening process and we will continue to modernize.
[Translation]
We will continue to modernize our processes, to follow up on our priorities, to provide better services and to produce results that reflect our mandate as a government. We will demonstrate that the priorities of the government reflect the priorities of Canadians.
[English]
Right now, there are hundreds or thousands of public servants writing reports as we speak. Thousands of public servants across government departments and agencies are writing reports that very few people read.
Senator Pratte: Fewer people read them than write them.
Mr. Brison: You have to question this.
I believe you have been briefed on Infobase, which is actually a significant step forward, but I think it could be made more user-friendly. The idea here is that we need to put the kind of information that is useful in useable formats that are easy to access, easy to understand and easy to analyze. If we, as a government, said our stated objective is to create one of the most opaque systems of reportage possible, we could not do any better than the one we inherited. That is not a partisan comment. It is just that, over periods of time, the system itself became less and less useful. We are changing that with the results frameworks. I think your committee has spent some time with Brian and Renée on this.
It also creates accountability for ministers and public servants. We are all in this together. Our objectives are now public, and there is a responsibility to get them done or, if there is some obstacle to getting something done, to be transparent as to what the obstacles are and to be open. I actually believe making government more open creates better government. When you share more of the information that you are using for decision-making with the public, they will better understand some of the decisions you're making. That goes back to the results framework.
In the U.S., at performance.gov, individual ministries and departments are listed in terms of what they are seeking to achieve and how they are doing. They did this in the U.K. too.
In government, when something is not going well, the culture is still one of secrecy. We know it's not going well, and then at some point there is an Auditor General's report or something and then everybody knows it wasn't going as well. My view is, on a more ever-greening basis, as things aren't going well, be open about the things that aren't going well on something. Tell people why they are not going well — nobody expects us to be perfect — and to have this reportage on an ongoing basis, including mandate letters and things like that.
We are making progress as a government, and we are delivering. You will see, in the not-so-distant future, more public engagement or communication of our results framework, particularly around mandate. We want Canadians to be partners with us and to understand not only the progress we're making but also some of the challenges we are facing as citizens. I think that creates better government.
[Translation]
Senator Forest: I thank the minister for his answer.
I think one of your government's major initiatives is infrastructure, and it is going to take a huge effort to upgrade Canada's infrastructure. In terms of the work being done in the Senate, I think future report on infrastructure by the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance will be very inspiring.
Minister, here is my question. In 2016-17, the government spent almost half of what was planned. In 2017-18, it plans to spend almost $8 billion, which exceeds the forecasts. In terms of tracking the results, is your department able to follow the pace of the investment semi-annually or quarterly? All the programs involve other partners. Of course, there are fixed programs such as the excise tax on gasoline, but there are infrastructure programs such as the small communities fund, in which the federal and municipal governments will be investing $1 million each. Are you able to assess the overall impact of your investments in infrastructure? Are you accounting for the leverage effect of those investments?
Mr. Brison: Our government is trying everywhere to create appropriate programs that reflect the objectives of each investment. It is important to be able to demonstrate the results, and it is clear that when you invest in infrastructure, it creates economic growth. At the same time, we need to make the economy greener, to reduce our environmental footprint, to create jobs and to improve community conditions across the country.
We have often heard the expression "shovel ready''.
[English]
You can have a "shovel ready'' project and be able to put money into a project in a riding, and people like me love cutting ribbons, but we also have to make sure they are "shovel worthy.'' That's a higher standard than being able to make an announcement or cut a ribbon or have a sod-turning. Other countries have upped their game on this.
Other countries have also done a better job — and I know this is something with which you are seized — of engaging pension funds in investing in infrastructure than we have done in Canada. The irony is there is a greater concentration of expertise in the financing of infrastructure in Canada than there is in any other country in the world. Whether it's CPPIB or Omers or Teachers or AIMCo or Caisse de Dépôt, these are pension funds building infrastructure around the world. They are doing so in places like Australia, for example, or in the U.K., because those countries have actually put together a public policy framework in which pension funds and institutional investors can partner with public funds to invest in infrastructure needs, fundamentally different than what we have done broadly in Canada.
We're investing a lot of money in infrastructure, $180 billion in the next 10 years, but that is not going to fix Canada's infrastructure needs. We will not build the kinds of communities, the kinds of transportation infrastructure, that we need to fulfil our economic and social potential as a country without engaging some of the most sophisticated investors in the world — and I'm talking about global pools of capital, including our pension funds.
I sometimes hear the opposition talk about these pension funds as if they are robber barons or something. These are sophisticated investors. They do make money. You know where that money goes? It goes to pensioners. It goes to retired teachers. It goes to retired public servants. It goes to retired workers. Is that a bad thing?
What I find incomprehensible is why we are so complicit now in a situation where the retirement savings of Canadian workers are building world-class infrastructure in communities and places like Australia or Israel or Chile or the U.K., and we haven't done a good job in Canada enabling them to build better communities here with their money. The reality is that we can move the needle in terms of purely federal government money with provincial money, but most of the provinces are pretty broke. We can move the needle a little bit. But if we want to transform Canadian infrastructure, we have to be bold. That is one of the reasons why the infrastructure bank, and taking a fundamentally different approach to how we finance infrastructure, is important. This involves a shift in how we view infrastructure. We have a lot of sophistication in financing of infrastructure resident in Canada. We want to engage those sophisticated investors in building better infrastructure here in our own country. I feel very strongly about that.
[Translation]
Senator McIntyre: Minister, my thanks to you and your team for appearing before us today. I would like to touch briefly on the issue of the public service workforce. I understand that one of the objectives of the secretariat is to ensure that the public service attracts and maintains a diverse workforce. However, has the secretariat developed a plan to attract and retain workers from underrepresented groups, that is, a workforce under the age of 30?
Mr. Brison: That is a good question. When our government was elected, our priority was to restore a culture of respect for the public service and make it more diverse. Progress has been made since, but much more needs to be done. Recently, a project called —
[English]
— "name-blind recruitment,'' and this is a pilot project. Other jurisdictions have tried name-blind recruitment. What was discovered in studies — this was done in studies at U of T and in other jurisdictions — is that there is a bias during the recruitment process that causes people to eliminate or to favour some resumés over others largely based on the name. It created a situation where people would "whiten'' their CVs in terms of their experiences, recognizing that there was a bias in terms of the system, to try to avoid that bias. There was a direct impact. When you put forward identical CVs with different names, the chances of one getting an interview versus another was impacted by their name. What is being tried in our government now, and this is being led by Treasury Board in several large departments, is a pilot around name-blind recruitment. This is important because it has the capacity to create a more diverse public service. A person's name should never be a barrier to employment in the Government of Canada, and so we will learn from this pilot and intend to broaden and deepen it.
In terms of attracting millennials and young people, we need to change the way we do government. Government continues to be too hierarchical. I was told recently that when you apply to the public service, the application process is still 230 days. Well, 230 days to a millennial is a long time. We need to make it easier for people to come into the public service for periods of their life and to go back out. We need to take a page out of the books of some of the IT companies, where young people work today, in terms of flexibility.
I mentioned Shopify earlier. It is one of the Canada's great successes. I have great respect for Tobi Lütke. I said to him recently, "You know, some of the people you have working here at Shopify, do you think we could get them to work for the Government of Canada?'' He said, "Yeah. These are people who want to make a difference. They are really driven. They have a sense of values where they want to make a difference.'' As President of the Treasury Board, I can't offer them stock options, but I can offer them something better, and that is the opportunity to paint on a larger canvas and to make a difference in the lives of Canadians.
[Translation]
To renew our public service, we must attract young Canadians by giving them the opportunity to be part of the modernization of their country in order to better reflect their values. We want to give them a chance to make a difference in the quality of life of all Canadians. I think it is an attractive opportunity for young people. There is still much work to be done.
[English]
I'm passionate about this. This is important.
I want to say something in terms of diversity and young people. There are about 6,000 summer students working across the Government of Canada this summer in summer employment. Last summer, we started an indigenous youth summer jobs program. Last summer, it had 30 students. I met with some of them in the last few months and talked about the program and what we can do to expand it. This summer, it has 100. I cannot tell you how inspiring it is to talk to these indigenous youth from across Canada who are so excited to have an opportunity, even for summer, to work within the public service.
The question is what we can do to provide them with — I don't want speak about a career path implying it's only the public service — an opportunity to spend at least part of their lives serving Canadians. I believe in public service personally. I continue to be excited about it. Within the public service, not just as politicians but within the professional public service, there is the opportunity to make a difference, and young people like variety. When you work in the public service at the Government of Canada, you can work in fisheries, environment or finance for a period. You can work at the best place of all, Treasury Board, which gives you an opportunity to get a lot of insight into every part of it. There has never been a Treasury Board president more excited about Treasury Board than me. But I am genuinely excited. I could sit here all day, if I didn't have some other stuff going on, and talk to you about some of what we're doing at Treasury Board and the Government of Canada to make the Government of Canada a workplace of choice for young Canadians. We are going to get this done.
The Chair: Minister, I know that your staff is impatient to pull you out of this committee meeting. You have been here for an hour, minister. You have been overly generous with your time.
Mr. Brison: This will be the most enjoyable hour I have had all day. I enjoyed my engagement with this committee. In the autumn, when we come back to this place, we should think of sort of an informal setting, getting together and just talking.
[Translation]
Thank you for your patience with the quality of my French. I am a little rusty this morning because I sat in the House of Commons until midnight last night. When I'm tired, I get rusty. I have two three-year-old twin daughters: Rose and Claire. At home, we speak in French and English. My partner, Maxime, is a francophone from Drummondville. When I speak in French with my daughters, they tell me:
[English]
"Daddy, you speak English. Don't speak French. You speak English.''
[Translation]
I say, "No, I am going to keep speaking to you in French, and from now on I will speak only in French.''
[English]
Then Claire comes up to me, pokes me in the chest and says, "Scott, listen to me. You speak English.'' So I tell you, even my daughters are not always patient with my French, and I must say, you have been this morning, so thank you very much.
The Chair: Minister, as we conclude and we say thank you very much, we all have a common objective and our common objective goes by the acronym TAP — transparency, accountability and predictability for the fiscal framework of Canadians. We conclude by saying thank you very much for sharing your information and your vision with the Senate National Finance Committee.
(The committee continued in camera.)