Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue No. 5 - Evidence - April 13, 2016
OTTAWA, Wednesday, April 13, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 6:45 p.m. to examine the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017.
Senator Larry W. Smith (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Welcome to the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, colleagues and members of the viewing public. The mandate of this committee is to examine matters relating to federal estimates generally, as well as government finance. My name is Larry Smith, senator from Quebec, and I chair the committee. Let me introduce briefly the other members of the committee.
From Alberta, Senator Grant Mitchell. Grant, welcome. From New Brunswick, Senator Percy Mockler. Former Mayor of Vancouver to his left, Senator Larry Campbell. Senator Nicole Eaton from Toronto. Senator Elizabeth Marshall from the Rock, Newfoundland, former Auditor General, and, of course, l'éminence grise — that's a very positive statement. Senator Richard Neufeld from B.C. That means that you have all the gray matter, senator.
Tonight, we have two groups with us, one bigger group and one other group, but very important groups, from Transport Canada, we have: André Lapointe, Associate Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer. I got that out all at once. He is accompanied by Claude Corbin, Director General, Financial Planning and Resources Management. From the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, we welcome Frank Leduc, Vice President, Finance, and Chief Financial Officer.
We will start with Transport.
[Translation]
André Lapointe, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services and Chief Financial Officer, Transport Canada: Thank you very much for inviting me here this evening to discuss Transport Canada's 2016-17 Main Estimates.
[English]
Transport Canada has received a total of $1.26 billion in funding through these estimates. These estimates represent a 21.6 per cent decrease from our 2015-16 Main Estimates, mostly due to the realignment of grants and contribution funding to better match the expected cash requirements in future years, sunsetting program funding and the transfer of the Gordie Howe International Bridge project to Infrastructure Canada.
With these Main Estimates, the department will be able to continue to implement its vision to have a transportation system in Canada that is recognized worldwide as safe and secure, efficient and environmentally responsible.
Transport Canada's major focus for the coming year remains the safety and security of our transportation system.
While the department continues to take measures to strengthen the safety and security of our system, we continue to forge ahead and advance the department's agenda by taking measures to ensure that core services remain properly funded and aligned with departmental priorities.
To further advance our agenda, the department has also received funding for a number of initiatives in Budget 2016.
As you know, these Main Estimates do not include any Budget 2016 funding for the department as of yet. This funding will be brought into the department's budget as part of the supplementary estimates process.
Transport Canada remains committed to delivering on its mandate, while also ensuring continued prudent and responsible management of its resources.
[Translation]
I will be very pleased to answer your questions.
The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Leduc, do you have an opening statement for us?
[English]
Frank Leduc, Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer, Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety: Absolutely. CCOHS is Canada's national resource for the advancement of workplace health and safety and promotes the total well-being of the working population in Canada. We do this by providing information, education and tools that support workplace health and safety and the prevention of occupational injury and illness.
CCOHS was created in 1978 to provide unbiased, reliable and practical occupational health and safety information to help employers create healthy, productive workplaces and to provide employees in Canada information they need to educate and protect themselves.
CCOHS functions as an independent departmental corporation under Schedule II of the Financial Administration Act and is accountable to Parliament through the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour.
CCOHS is governed by a tripartite council, representing governments at the federal, provincial and territorial levels, employer groups and labour organizations. Our funding is derived from a combination of appropriations, cost- recovery revenues and collaborations with the provinces. It is expected that approximately 50 per cent of the budget will be funded through cost recoveries from the creation, production and worldwide sales of fee-for-service and revenue-generating occupational health and safety products and services.
In 2015, our council of governors approved a strategic plan that calls for growth in CCOHS's reach and impact in Canada. In order to facilitate that growth, CCOHS needed a new financial model that allows the organization to carry sufficient funds forward into the next fiscal year to discharge liabilities that were created in association with cost- recovery revenues. For example, in 2014-15, CCOHS had a deferred revenue liability of $1.3 million and was only able to carry forward $413,000 into 2015-16 through the operating budget carry-forward mechanism.
CCOHS lapsed $429,000 in cost-recovery revenues that were in excess of the OBCF limit. Therefore, the balance of liability must be discharged with current-year cost-recovery revenues in appropriations, significantly hampering the organization's ability to invest in growth and achieve its 2015-16 targets.
The issue at hand is that the vote-netting revenue authority model was restrictive. CCOHS worked with Treasury Board Secretariat to find a solution. As a result, I'm happy to say that we will be moving to a statutory revenue authority as provided in paragraph 6(1)(g) of the CCOHS Act. That section provides a statutory authority to raise revenues to offset some of the expenses of the centre and is not restricted to a particular fiscal year. The section reads that:
6(1) The Centre may, in furtherance of its objects,
(g) expend, for the purposes of this Act, any money appropriated by Parliament for the work of the Centre or received by the Centre through the conduct of its operations;
The Treasury Board Secretariate senior legal counsel issued a legal opinion supporting CCOHS's ability to use the funds raised in a fiscal year to offset expenditures in future fiscal years through the statutory authority.
It is important to note that the change from vote-netting revenue authority to statutory authority does not increase the total appropriations expended by CCOHS. The increase in Main Estimates and planned spending shown in tables on page 9 of our 2016-17 Report on Plans and Priorities reflect a change in the funding model only. In the past, the revenues collected by the centre were netted from the expenditures, and only the net amount of expenditures was reflected. Under the new model, revenues earned under the statutory authority cannot be netted from expenditures.
On a true comparative basis, total planned spending of appropriations in 2016-17 is $4.652 million, which translates to a reduction of 14 per cent, or $737,000, from the 2014-15 levels.
Thank you very much. I would be happy to answer any questions.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Leduc. We have four senators on our list.
Senator Eaton: Mr. Lapointe, can you tell me what percentage core services use out of your transport budget? How much of that is kind of allocated every year to —
Mr. Lapointe: I just want to understand "core services.'' Are you referring to —
Senator Eaton: Services you have to pay for every single year.
Mr. Lapointe: We have got what we call fixed costs.
Senator Eaton: All right, fixed costs.
Mr. Lapointe: Those are rent, power bills, et cetera.
Senator Eaton: So much the railways for this, for maintenance — whatever your fixed costs are.
Mr. Lapointe: Fixed costs this year, or in the last exercise, were at $74 million across the country.
Senator Eaton: I am asking the question badly. What I'm trying to get at is: How much discretionary money do you have every year to say, "Okay, this year we're going to spend extra money doing airport security,'' or "This year we're going to do railroad crossing maintenance,'' or whatever it is — or "We're going to do something about drones''?
Mr. Lapointe: We have what we refer to as sort of core —
Senator Eaton: So every year, you have zero budgeting? You start every year from zero?
Mr. Lapointe: We have a core budget.
Senator Eaton: That's the $74 million out of the billion.
Mr. Lapointe: No, sorry. The $74 million is sort of general payments for set costs. We have what we call an A-based budget, the budget that goes year over year. That's core. The base varies year over year.
For a grants and contributions program, for instance, that has four or five years of length, we will have funding for that period.
If we look at our A-base, on the salaries, we have $401 million, and on OOC, we have $134.
Senator Eaton: Up to about $700 million, right?
Mr. Lapointe: In 2016-17, we were at $680 total, and $1.2 billion is the total budget.
Senator Eaton: Your main focus, as you said yourself, remains the safety and security of our transportation system. What are your priorities for the remaining money? Because that is lovely, but it is kind of "motherhood and apple pie.'' I would think that you are the safety and security of our transportation system, so what are this year's priorities?
Mr. Lapointe: We have the priorities in our Report on Plans and Priorities. Tightening up and accelerating the modernization of our safety and security oversight is one of them.
Senator Eaton: Yes, okay.
Mr. Lapointe: The next one is advancing initiatives to promote an environmentally responsible transportation system.
Senator Eaton: What does that mean?
Mr. Lapointe: We have a range of activities that we conduct, such as working with partners to enhance the marine environment by reducing impacts caused by transportation sources.
Senator Eaton: Does that mean you look at ships' engines? You go and examine underneath to make sure they're not leaking oil and not rusting paint? I'm sorry; it would be interesting to know where the money goes.
Mr. Lapointe: For example, we do inspect ships. We have inspectors who go on ships every day and inspect whether the ship conforms to international regulations.
Senator Eaton: So there's now more of an environmental aspect?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, we make sure they're managing their ballast water properly, for example — that they have systems in place to treat ballast water. That's one example on marine safety. So, environmental.
On efficiency — making sure that the systems we have in place for how economic actors in Canada conduct themselves with regard to the work in the transportation system. We make sure that the frameworks we have in place are appropriate.
I realize I'm not giving you the level of detail you're looking for.
Senator Eaton: No, you are giving me these lovely answers, and I'm trying to pick through what you're saying to see what I can actually put my finger on.
Mr. Lapointe: If it's helpful, I can go through it quickly. You have had a chance to look at our estimates material. We have got a listing of how we sort of parse out the funding. If we just go through a quick list, we have got our four main divisions, if you will. First is an efficient transportation system. Under that, we have got transportation infrastructure.
Senator Eaton: When you say efficient transportation and infrastructure, does that mean money is going to go to cities to help them build subways or go-trains?
Mr. Lapointe: Money goes to projects such as gateways and corridors. We funded rail corridors, bridges, highway refit, et cetera. Those are the large contribution programs we have. Those are, in fact, the largest pieces of our budget.
Senator Eaton: So you don't have any major infrastructure spending.
Mr. Lapointe: Well, we do have significant infrastructure spending. We have the two infrastructure programs that are still active, if you will, in transport. One is the Gateways and Borders Crossing Fund, which is sunsetting in a couple of years, and the other one is the Asia-Pacific. Those two programs have funded hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure investments, and both of them are sunsetting in the next few years.
Senator Eaton: You have $600 million over and above your hard costs.
Mr. Lapointe: Exactly, correct. So the big piece is often Gs and Cs and that fluctuates year over year. For example, this year on infrastructure we've got about $450 million and, on gateways and corridors those two programs I mentioned, $260 million.
Senator Marshall: I have questions for both organizations, and I'm going to start with Transport, just carrying on with the questions that Senator Eaton had asked. I wanted to talk specifically about the area under a safe and secure transportation system, and you're talking about marine safety.
I represent the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and we have, of course, the ferry services that connect the island to the mainland. You would have a responsibility in that area, wouldn't you? Would you be inspecting those vessels for safety? What's your relationship to that service?
Mr. Lapointe: Essentially everything that is on the water in Canada is overseen by Transport.
Senator Marshall: Do you inspect and also issue licences for those vessels?
Mr. Lapointe: We issue licences for the staff, so captain and certain members of the crew, and there will be inspections regularly. One thing some companies or organizations do is have the inspections done by third parties.
Senator Marshall: They contract it out?
Mr. Lapointe: Contract it out to organizations that are recognized worldwide as having expertise in that, and those are used so we don't have to send our folks, but they will look at what is produced.
Senator Marshall: That's the Marine Atlantic service. Throughout the island, we have a number of ferry services that connect different communities within the province. Would you also have a role for inspecting those?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Marshall: While we have some new vessels, we have some pretty old ones. Would you also inspect those?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Marshall: All of them. Do the older ones get more attention?
Mr. Lapointe: It depends. Some of them are on a different cycle. It will depend.
Senator Marshall: On their age?
Mr. Lapointe: It will depend on their age and it will depend on the obligations, because a lot of the inspections in the marine sector are driven by regulation, so we have to inspect certain ships on different cycles.
Senator Marshall: How about marine vessels that have problems? I'm thinking specifically Newfoundland recently purchased a new vessel and it's having a lot of ongoing problems. Do you give special attention to those marine vessels that have problems, even if they're new?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes. We will send inspectors over. The vessel has to be seaworthy. We want to ensure that that happens. Our folks will work closely with the operator to make sure that everything is in order.
Senator Marshall: Under marine safety, it shows that there has been a reduction from $69 million in 2014-15, and now it's down to $56 million, so what's not being done? What's the reason for the reduction?
Mr. Lapointe: There are a couple of things. You're looking at 2014-15?
Senator Marshall: I was looking at 2014-15 and going across the line to 2016-17 and seeing quite a significant drop, especially since marine vessels and safety is a big issue.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Marshall: What's missing?
Mr. Lapointe: A few technical items, and I may ask Claude to jump in here. When you see expenditures, that is what was actually spent in 2014-15 in marine, so $69 million. That is all the money. That includes additions for pay lists at the end of the year and all the mechanics that come into the department. The reduction is one of the programs that is sunsetting, but it is mostly pay list.
Senator Marshall: Which program is sunsetting?
Mr. Lapointe: World class tanker safety, so we've got cash flow changes, so we've got a decrease of $3.2 million in changing cash flows, so we've got some sunsetting funds for a world class transportation system. There is an increase there of about $0.9 million as a result of renewing funding for a major project management office.
Senator Marshall: If we drop down, and I'm talking about marine again.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Marshall: What does marine security cover? What is marine security?
Mr. Lapointe: We have international agreements and we have our international partners. There are a series of obligations we have to maintain marine security at ports. For instance, when certain ships arrive, there are obligations on the port side to make sure that entry and exit are controlled.
Senator Marshall: Could it be the ferry services?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, inspection of terminals as well for security.
Senator Marshall: That would be like the Oceanex facility in St. John's, so it could cover that also.
Mr. Lapointe: It could cover that, yes.
Senator Marshall: I'm going to move now to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety to make sure I cover both of you off before I go on the list for the second round.
I'm interested in the funding. My understanding is that you are funded so much by the government, but then you raise fees, you charge fees, and you get to spend that, too; is that correct?
Mr. Leduc: That is correct. Under the old model — I will just use very high-level numbers because they're nowhere near as high as my colleagues here — our total expenditures are somewhere in the neighbourhood of $9 million, and our appropriations would cover about half of that and then we have products and services that we sell on a cost- recovery basis to cover the other half.
Senator Marshall: What are the rules or the policies regarding the disposition of your surplus or deficit at the end of each year under the new model?
Mr. Leduc: Under the new model, we get to roll it forward into the future fiscal year. So the model will include the board, so our council of governors. There's an audit and risk committee that will be looking at the multi-year investment plan to make sure that we're using those funds in furtherance of the objectives of the centre.
Senator Marshall: Is there a limit on the surplus or deficit that you can accumulate? Will Treasury Board let you run up a big deficit?
Mr. Leduc: We cannot run a deficit at all.
Senator Marshall: There was a deficit a couple years ago.
Mr. Leduc: The way we would manage that is we would underspend against the appropriations. A couple of years ago, where we had a target of $4.3 million for vote-netted revenue authority, we were only able to raise $4.127 million, I believe it was. We had to correspondingly underspend on the expenditures.
Senator Marshall: You have eliminated your deficit, effectively.
Mr. Leduc: Yes.
The Chair: Mr. Leduc, if I could interject for a second, I'm not sure if we all understand exactly what your group does in terms of unbiased, reliable, practical occupational health and safety information to help employers create healthy, productive workplaces. Could you give us a 30-second overview, an introduction, as to actually what you do and who you do it to?
Mr. Leduc: The important part is to note that we're governed by a tripartite council of governors.
The Chair: Right.
Mr. Leduc: The occupational health and safety field is a provincial responsibility and a federal responsibility for federally regulated workplaces. Obviously organized labour is a large stakeholder and employer groups are a large stakeholder. Our council of governors really brings all that together.
The Chair: Who are your biggest internal users or customers or clients?
Mr. Leduc: We service everybody.
The Chair: Give us some examples of everybody.
Mr. Leduc: Absolutely. For example, we have a safety info line that is available to all Canadians. They can call in. They can email any questions.
Senator Eaton: My staff can call in?
Mr. Leduc: Absolutely. So we have a bit of a call centre that deals with that and some health and safety technical experts that are available to answer those questions either by phone or by email. That's one side of it.
We have collaborations with Health Canada on how do we best put together the training for the new WHMIS 2015 rules. So we built the e-learning courses for that and used our partners on a learning management system platform.
The Chair: So you have a production capability also?
Mr. Leduc: Yes, absolutely.
The Chair: Fantastic.
Senator Eaton: Is it mostly for people who do physical work?
Mr. Leduc: No. Mental health is a large component of what we deal with.
Senator Eaton: That could be useful in the Senate.
Mr. Leduc: Yes. It's is useful everywhere, and it's getting more and more traction, and it's something that we're starting to bolster our expertise in.
The Chair: Do you make up all your content and all your products to help people in the different areas?
Mr. Leduc: Yes, we do that in collaboration with some knowledge partners. Our expertise is really in putting it together and getting it out to as many Canadians as possible.
The Chair: In third party or intergovernmental partners, who are your partners?
Mr. Leduc: For example, we'll work with Health Canada on WHMIS, or I was at a meeting with the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse dealing with how do we really get ahead of substance abuse in the workplace and how do we deal with that. There are many different partners in all different facets of occupational health and safety issues.
The Chair: As you look at your business, what are your three top priorities?
Mr. Leduc: Our three top priorities, I would say, are to grow the region impact of the business. We've seen some success there in the past, but we've got a long way to go.
The Chair: Do you have measurements that you use? Do you have feedback in the plans and priorities too? Do you have that element?
Mr. Leduc: Yes. One of the things that we track at the council of governors level is how many Canadian web sessions we have, because a lot of the content that we deliver is electronic. So we've seen a sizeable increase in unique Canadian web sessions.
The Chair: That's one. What's two and three?
Mr. Leduc: Two, I would say, internally focused, we have a workforce that's been there for a while and it's been very loyal, but I'm sure will retire at some point, so we're looking at strengthening the organization and recruiting experts in the new fields such as mental health. And the third one would be a stretch at this point.
The Chair: How many internal folks would you have actually? Would you all be full time or would you have consultants? How does it work?
Mr. Leduc: We're mostly full time. We do have some partnerships, which is where we get the expertise from the people that we couldn't really afford to have on staff full time. We currently have, I believe, 84 employees in the building. We're understaffed versus our approved levels, but that's been a function of not achieving our revenue targets in recent history.
The Chair: What's been the biggest accomplishment in the last 12 months of your operation?
Mr. Leduc: I just got the web sessions numbers, and they're up significantly year over year. So I would say that the team has been working really hard and working with new social media channels and really trying to get the message out there, and we're getting a very positive reaction. I would say that's one.
The other one is we just hosted the CCOHS forum 2016 in Vancouver at the end of February, and we had an overwhelming response. That was great to see.
The Chair: Colleagues, I didn't mean to interrupt.
Senator Campbell: I have questions for both parties.
The first question I have is about the $683 million drop in the Ferry Services Contribution Program. I'm from British Columbia, and you don't give us anything for our ferries, so I'm really curious about the ferry contributions here. All of a sudden it's gone from $683 million to zero. Why is that?
Mr. Lapointe: The $683 million for ferries doesn't resonate at all. I'm not sure where that amount comes from.
Senator Campbell: I have here Transport Main Estimates, 2015-16 and 2016-17, and it comes under grants and contributions, $683 million. It says that the Ferry Services Contribution Program will end soon. So it's not all of that?
Mr. Lapointe: No. That's the total for grants and contributions.
Senator Campbell: Where did they go? You went from $683 million to zero.
Mr. Lapointe: I think you had the time with my colleague from Treasury Board.
Senator Campbell: We did. It was thoroughly enjoyable too.
Mr. Lapointe: Excellent. So this is the change from one year to the other. I think he may have mentioned that we're trying out a different way of presenting the estimates.
Senator Campbell: Yes.
Mr. Lapointe: So before we had one cumulative vote, and now it's split in three, so that 683 is now the 258, the 103 and the 38, which are in our Mains Estimates now. Our total is 400 million or 399 and change. So the drop from 683 to 399 just reflects changes in re-profiling for grants and contributions.
Senator Campbell: You are going to end the Ferry Services Contribution Program?
Mr. Lapointe: The Ferry Services Contribution Program was set to sunset, but it has been funded in Budget 2016. The numbers are not reflected in our Mains Estimates. We expect that to be reflected in supplementary estimates coming up.
Senator Campbell: So you're not going to stop the contributions to the East Coast?
Mr. Lapointe: No. That is continuing.
Senator Campbell: Just in case anybody is thinking I'm only interested in the West Coast. That's not true.
I'm interested in the health and safety. So you basically eat what you kill. You can only spend as much as you get in revenue from all of your assorted parties?
Mr. Leduc: Including appropriations, yes.
Senator Campbell: Your FTEs could be 96, I understand. That would be your numbers?
Mr. Leduc: Yes.
Senator Campbell: You're running at 84 right now?
Mr. Leduc: Correct.
Senator Campbell: Do you ever get back to 96? It must be very difficult. You can have 96, but your revenue must vary wildly as you adjust to different methods of putting your information out.
Mr. Leduc: Yes, and that has been one of the challenges that we're looking to address with the new funding model.
I can give you an example of one of the problems that we had in the past. We have a service that we provide where we'll manage safety data sheets for organizations. Where we would sign a contract and receive funding or receive a payment on that contract in the last quarter of our fiscal year, if we were to exceed our target for the year, we would lapse that revenue. So the cost in the future fiscal period associated with executing on that contract had to be funded out of current year appropriations or current year cost recovery revenues. Now, with this new system, we are hoping to eventually get back to that number. We're certainly going to do that cautiously, and we have to manage a wave of workforce retirements as we do that as well.
Senator Campbell: Who are your competitors? You're going out and selling services and product. Who are you competing against?
Mr. Leduc: There are some other health and safety associations, so typically provincial health and safety associations that will sell, for example, training products. From the safety data sheet management system, there's a fairly large competitor out of Chicago that wades into the Canadian market quite a bit. There are definitely some competitors out there.
Senator Campbell: You have to obviously react to that competition to stay in business?
Mr. Leduc: We try and make sure that our pricing is fair; absolutely.
Senator Mitchell: I'm going to start on occupational health and safety. You're sort of the focus of questions right now. I'm interesting in knowing whether you've done anything with respect to harassment in the RCMP and its mental health effects?
Mr. Leduc: Not directly with the RCMP that I'm aware. We definitely have some information on mental health and harassment in the workplace that is available, as I said, to all Canadians.
Senator Mitchell: So if you identified a problem within your federal jurisdiction, with the RCMP, could you go to the RCMP and say, "We're hearing a lot of the problems about harassment.'' In fact, they have admitted that there is a cultural problem. You could add, "You probably have a management problem. You may have a leadership problem. We would like to help you.'' Is that something that you could do to take the initiative to build business?
Mr. Leduc: That is an option. What typically happens is the roles are reversed. They will usually come to us. We do report in through the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, so there is a tie-in in there where they will sometimes refer people to come to see us and use some of our resources.
Where there's an opportunity to do a project, we will. One example that comes to mind — and it's an easy one because it was in our backyard — is work we did with the Hamilton Port Authority. We helped them shape a better workplace safety program.
Senator Mitchell: Around mental health?
Mr. Leduc: Not solely mental health, but a holistic workplace health and safety program.
Senator Mitchell: One of the things about harassment is it's not something that management, if they're doing it — or somebody; if they're aware of it — really wants necessarily to come out, so they're not necessarily going to go and solicit you proactively to fix it. Do you have an ability to pick up and go proactively? It would be one way to develop business in this case. It's pretty widely known there's a harassment problem in some features of the RCMP. In fact, the effects have been devastating. Could you go and say, "We think we can help you?''
Mr. Leduc: That's absolutely a possibility.
Senator Mitchell: Maybe that's where the extra $12 million a year are.
Having said that, because I got faith in you, my question would be this: If you're a business, why does the government have to be in it, in any event? Why couldn't it just be left to private sector? Was there a gap there that needed to be identified?
Mr. Leduc: I just want to clarify. We're not solely a business. We offer a lot of public service. For example, that inquiries department that I was talking about has a safety line. We also produce a lot of materials that are available for free on our website. OSHAnswers is a large one that many Canadians and employees in Canadian workplaces will access frequently. There's a cost associated with the production and maintenance of all those documents. That's really where the appropriations come in.
I think the second part of your question is on the business end and how did this come about. I'll clarify. I've only been with CCOHS for a few years, but in the past I know that they were fully funded and they were a much larger organization. Through time, I think there were some budgetary challenges and the size of the organization was reduced. This is a model that was put in to help fund the organization going forward.
Senator Mitchell: Regarding transportation, Mr. Lapointe, you clearly have responsibility or some responsibility for ports, do you?
Mr. Lapointe: We do, yes.
Senator Mitchell: In the Defence Committee we recently had an expert witness in our study on terrorist infrastructure threats who said that when they go to the ports, they are told that the biggest threat the ports feel isn't from terrorist attacks to their infrastructure, it's from climate change causing water to rise and to flood their ports. I think about Alberta farmers trying to get their wheat out in ports that are flooded. Have you considered that at all in your assessment of future risk?
Mr. Lapointe: I probably should get back to you on that. I think our folks have done work on the environment side. I know work has been done, but I won't venture any details because I don't have that. However, I'd be happy to get back to the committee with details on that.
Senator Mitchell: That would be great if you would.
The Chair: We will follow up. Some of the departments are not necessarily responding. We feel that it's an obligation on both our parts to try to do our jobs and ask you to help us to be successful in trying to do what we want to do.
Senator Mitchell: I'm interested in your take on where they do work on safety culture. Do you do that in industrial settings, in private sector settings — any particular industries? What can you tell us about that?
Mr. Leduc: The work that we did with the Hamilton Port Authority was sort of a pilot project for us. We're looking at opportunities to take that to different ports across the country, which will be sort of the benefit in having developed the template in the first place.
As far as being able to do it in other workplaces, I would suggest there's a lot of competition in the market with some expertise specifically in that field.
We've developed software programs that will help organizations manage their health and safety culture, and that is one of our cost recovery items. However, it's been a challenging one, to be honest with you, because it almost requires partnering with a consultant or a group to help implement that software.
That's sort of the angle that we've taken because, again, we're 85 people in Hamilton, and it's very difficult to deploy something that would require a large presence across the country.
Senator Neufeld: To Transport, under "Multimodal Safety and Security,'' there's "clean water from transportation.'' It's an expenditure of $29 million. Can you tell me what that is?
Mr. Lapointe: Certainly. It's our programs that deal with regulations and measures that we take to prevent pollution on the water — for instance, as I mentioned earlier, ballast water. That would be part of that.
Senator Neufeld: That would all be under marine security and all of those kinds of things, clean water from transportation. That's only ballast water?
Mr. Lapointe: There are other regulations pertaining to ships and pollution that we have in place and that we monitor. We have flights over certain bodies of water to make sure we detect any oil spills.
Senator Neufeld: Now that you touch on that, how good is that? I've been told you can spot a drop of oil from a long ways away. Is that correct?
Mr. Lapointe: Apparently, it's quite effective.
Senator Neufeld: It's quite effective. That would fly the coast, like for British Columbia or the East Coast?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Neufeld: How often do you do that? Is that a regular flight or is that just once in a while?
Mr. Lapointe: It's periodic.
Senator Neufeld: It must be a special airplane type.
Mr. Lapointe: It is. It's equipped with special equipment, with cameras and such, to be able to detect. I will get back to the committee on the actual frequency.
Senator Neufeld: Okay. There would be that kind of equipment on the East Coast and on the West Coast. How about in the North?
Mr. Lapointe: I think we have some flights that —
Senator Neufeld: In the Arctic, too?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Neufeld: Could you get that information back to us?
Mr. Lapointe: I will.
Senator Neufeld: I'd be interested in that because I've heard good things about that.
The Chair: Part of point number two, the strategic outcome in the plans and priorities of the clean transportation system, contains lots of objectives.
You folks are supposed to have answers by March 2016, which is right now. So it will be interesting to see.
Senator Neufeld: Clean air from transportation: Is that similar to clean water? Does that mean ships' emissions, air emissions?
Mr. Lapointe: Air emissions.
Senator Neufeld: Okay, that's interesting. One thing I want to also ask about is the Federal Contaminated Sites Action Plan and the reduction in spending. What sites are you responsible for? What sites would that be?
Mr. Lapointe: We have sites across the country. For instance, in Gaspé, Quebec, where we own the port, it's just a small facility, but it used to be a DND facility during the war. There's been some oil handling, petroleum-product handling, over the course of about 30 or 40 years on the site, so there's contamination there. There's also contamination in the riverbed. So that is one example, and there was a project in Gaspé to decontaminate.
Senator Neufeld: What you are saying there is that you have cleaned enough of those sites up that you can actually reduce the budget that you had for contaminated site cleanup.
Mr. Lapointe: The reduction you are seeing there is the sunsetting of the Contaminated Sites Action Plan funding for the federal government. That has sunset in 2015-16. We will see what happens in the future. That is the reduction. We still have a number of sites, and we're hoping to be able to continue to decontaminate over time. We have that mapped out, and we have our inventory of those sites.
Senator Neufeld: I want to go a little further on the Ferry Services Contribution Program. There was a reduction. Last year it was $34 million and this year it's $16.7 million. Is there just some more coming on Supplementary Estimates (A) or —
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, if we go to what was announced in the budget, for Eastern Canada ferries, the budget announced $51.9 million. Over two years?
Claude Corbin, Director General, Financial Planning and Resources Management, Transport Canada: For one year, and the grants and contribution money that will flow will bring it back to the same level.
Senator Neufeld: The grants to the British Columbia ferry system will stay the same, I see — $29 million.
Mr. Lapointe: That's set, and it is pegged to the CPI in Vancouver.
Senator Neufeld: Okay.
Mr. Lapointe: So that increases a little bit per year.
Senator Neufeld: What responsibility do you have for spill response at ports? The port of Vancouver, spill response for shipping of oil. What responsibility does Transport Canada have there?
Mr. Lapointe: That's a good question. I will have to get back to you on that. We are involved, but the exact activities we conduct I will have to get back to you on.
Senator Neufeld: "World-class transportation system'' means what? Was that some of the spill response issues?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, spill response is in the world-class system.
Senator Neufeld: If you would get back to us, I think that would be very helpful. If we're going to start shipping oil out of the Port of Vancouver, we don't want a budget cut in the spill response process, so that would be interesting to see.
Mr. Leduc, how do you work with the provinces? Tthere's provincial responsibility and then the feds. How does that relationship work?
Mr. Leduc: It works well. We have representatives from each of the provinces on our council of governors, and so that helps facilitate any of the priorities that need to be addressed in any province. Those representatives are typically either from the provincial ministry of labour or workers compensation board, for example.
Senator Neufeld: Okay, so you share those duties, but cooperate.
Mr. Leduc: We cooperate. Our mandate is really to provide that information, and so a large part of it is that they may tell us that health care is a big priority that needs to be addressed. Then we will start working on putting together some information on the hazards in hospitals, for example, and provide that content.
One recent thing that we worked on just came to mind. Construction is a big area of focus in New Brunswick, so we worked with New Brunswick on producing an app that can be used by people in the construction industry that has very quick mobile access, obviously, to all the health and safety information and regulations that they would need to be aware of.
Senator Neufeld: Further to Senator Mitchell's question with regard to the RCMP, that's federal. It is no secret that they're having some problems. It was a good question. I'm going to ask you why you didn't. If you had the authority to, why wouldn't you? You are a body that has that responsibility. You said you could do it. Tell me why you have not.
Mr. Leduc: We put together information. We don't have any authority to regulate or inspect or anything. That falls with the labour program. We do put together information that is available, and we would be happy to help, most certainly, but I wouldn't say that we have the authority to walk into the RCMP and say, "We are coming in to do A, B and C for you.''
Senator Neufeld: Oh, I misunderstood, I guess, what you said to Senator Mitchell. I thought you said that you had the authority to do it, but, for whatever reason, you didn't do it. So you don't have the authority to go into any place on occupational health and safety and actually say, "You have got a problem; we're here to actually help you.'' You don't have that authority for anyone. You can only be invited in. Is that correct?
Mr. Leduc: Yes, correct.
Senator Neufeld: That clarifies it. If all you can do is be invited in, then I understand.
The Chair: Senator Mitchell has a supplementary on your question, Senator Neufeld.
Senator Mitchell: One of the key elements that's been woven throughout your testimony is that you do need to develop business.
Mr. Leduc: Yes.
Senator Mitchell: What's your marketing model? It seems to me that if I were in your business, I'd be looking for places that had problems. Maybe I can't go in and force them to allow us to help them, but I could go in and say, "You know, Mr. Commissioner of the RCMP, we have the kind of resources that you need to help you fix your cultural, structural harassment management problem or whatever it is.'' Have you sent out one of your salespeople to convince them that they need your help?
Mr. Leduc: Problem number one: We don't have any salespeople.
Senator Mitchell: How do you market?
Mr. Leduc: It falls upon the management team, to be quite honest with you. Unfortunately, our present and CEO resigned at the end of November, but he formerly did a large part of that. So we're waiting for the new GIC appointee to join the team. There's a vice-president of operations that does a lot of that work, and I'm sharing some of it as well.
Through our strategic plan that I mentioned earlier, we did identify some high-risk sectors. Mining, for example, is one of them, so we are working with mining associations to make sure that they're aware of the products and services that we can provide that help them to find the solutions that they need for their workplaces. That leads to the business that we need.
The Chair: Mr. Leduc, I'm not sure if you have a clear mandate, but maybe, with whoever is going to be the ultimate decision maker, you will be able to clarify what your mandate is to maybe add in what Senator Mitchell is suggesting may be an opportunity for you so that, as opposed to having a user group that always comes to you, you can be proactive in going out to them. Historically, it seems like you have had some proactivity, but it hasn't necessarily been constituted in your mandate.
Mr. Leduc: Absolutely.
The Chair: That may be an opportunity for you. Just a supplementary before we get to Senator Mockler: to Mr. Lapointe and Mr. Corbin, how many contaminated sites are you responsible for? Because it leads to a second question.
Mr. Corbin: It would be over 100 sites for sure. I don't have the specific number.
The Chair: Of these 100 sites, how many sites are you able to clean up on a yearly basis? Where is your priority? Where are your priority sites? Do you have priority sites you have to clean?
Mr. Lapointe: We have a priority setting system.
The Chair: How many do you do on a yearly basis?
Mr. Lapointe: It will depend on the funding we have available. Because the contaminated sites funding that comes from the program funds either 80 or 85 per cent of certain projects, so we try to maximize that funding when it is available.
The Chair: To ask a simple question: How many contaminated sites would you have cleaned up in 2015?
Mr. Lapointe: I would have to get back to you with the exact number. Some of these projects take two to five years to complete.
The Chair: Understood.
Mr. Lapointe: We can tackle three, four, five, six, ten, fifteen.
The Chair: Do you have any of these contaminated sites on Aboriginal lands and reserves?
Mr. Lapointe: I will have to get back to you on that.
The Chair: Do you have any in the oil sands? The next question is: What type of horizontal relationships do you have with other departments that are getting rid of contamination?
Mr. Lapointe: Those are all excellent questions. I will have to get back to you on the details.
The Chair: We hope next time you will send some operations people here to help you guys out, because we're putting you on the spot. I apologize if we're being overaggressive, but it is important for us, because most of us come from a mixed business background.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
The Chair: We understand results, and our job as a Finance Committee is to understand what you folks do, your operational requirements, your operational objectives and your results. We have the results, reports and priorities, et cetera, and it is very interesting to see how the results are set up. But there may be ways even of improving that. It's very methodical, which is fine, but this is why we're asking about the importance, because if we have priorities on a national basis, we try and understand all these horizontal linkups.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
The Chair: If you have 100 sites and 30 sites are in the oil sands, and you have 20 sites in the Aboriginal reserve areas, there's an interconnection there that is strong that goes to your whole issue of clean water and clean transportation.
Mr. Lapointe: We will come back to you with details on those questions for sure.
Senator Neufeld: When you say the oil sands, that's Alberta's responsibility. It is federal land that you would have responsibility on.
Mr. Lapointe: Correct.
Senator Neufeld: These are federal ports — not for every province and territory on all their land.
The Chair: I'm sorry.
Senator Neufeld: It is what is federally owned. That's not the oil sands.
The Chair: Understood.
Mr. Corbin: Maybe for some clarification —
The Chair: Thank you, sir. I apologize. I got excited again.
Senator Neufeld: You got excited.
Mr. Corbin: Most of the sites would be sites we either own, like airports or ports, or that we used to own that we transferred. In the early 1990s, for example, we transferred a lot of airports, but there were some environmental liabilities associated with the transfer, so we're cleaning those up. As Mr. Lapointe said, we prioritize on a yearly basis to the highest-ranked projects.
The Chair: I was just trying to get the answer you just gave me, Mr. Corbin. I blundered, but I didn't mean to make a mistake.
Mr. Corbin: That's all right.
Senator Mockler: I want to touch on a few items, but I will start with one of the most recent that we have heard. When I look at your estimates and the changes for both of your estimates and programs — I will come back to that, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, Mr. Lapointe and Mr. Corbin, Transport Canada has a list of 500 highest-risk railroad crossings, and it is not widely shared across Canada. That has just not happened in the last month. It has been going on. Could you provide us with that list?
Mr. Lapointe: I will have to verify. This is late-breaking, as I understand it, but I think we can provide that list on demand. I know it will be made available to the municipalities that ask for it. I will see about getting that list to you.
Senator Mockler: Did I hear right that you will provide us with the list of those 500? Transport Canada does not routinely warn the public about all railway crossings that appear in its database. It shows the country's 500 highest-risk crossings. I am appalled that you could not provide that to us immediately.
Mr. Lapointe: I will have to go back and make sure.
Senator Mockler: Because that's part of the budget, and I bring to your attention rail safety, as per page 267. Rail safety, we have not increased. We have reduced Main Estimates from 2015 to 2016. It's been reduced in 2016 for the present year. Could you explain that, in view of what I just asked about the list? It is that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.
Mr. Lapointe: It is important to distinguish between what we have in the estimates and what ends up being in actual expenditures. If we look back at 2014-15 for rail safety, we're at $35,333 million. Estimates from last year, 20115-17, are $35.707 million. This year, that's dropped. We did receive significant funding in Budget 2016. The expectation is that by the end of this cycle, with money coming in through supplementary estimates, we will have a significant increase on both rail safety and transportation of dangerous goods.
As a reminder: Budget 2016 announced $143 million for rail safety and the transportation of dangerous goods. That is over a number of years. We expect very much that this will be reflected in one of the upcoming estimates.
Senator Mockler: One of the riskiest crossings — and it's the busiest train crossing in all of Canada — is in Winnipeg. Do you foresee in your Main Estimates 2016-17 that this particular problem will be part of your remedy for safety?
Mr. Lapointe: Unfortunately, I can't speak to that specific crossing or any other. I'm not a rail expert. But I will get that answer for you.
Senator Mockler: You could get that answer for me?
Mr. Lapointe: Absolutely.
[Translation]
Senator Mockler: I would like to move on to another subject, the Airports Capital Assistance Program, which provides funding for safety-related investments at smaller airports. Its funding would be slightly reduced, to $37.8 million. What are the most common safety deficiencies at Canada's remote airport facilities, such as in the North? My other question is the following:
[English]
Would your policy on paving the gravel runways in use on Canada's northern airports as recommended by the Canada Transportation Act review that improve the safety of these facilities? If not, why not?
[Translation]
Mr. Lapointe: Unfortunately, I do not have any details to provide in answer to those two questions, but I will check with program officials. We will send you written answers with regard to the Airports Capital Assistance Program for remote regions and the paving of runways.
[English]
Senator Mockler: My next question is coming to the Canada Transportation Act review that was tabled in Parliament on February 25, 2016. It made a number of recommendations on grain transportation. There's no doubt that that will impact and affect moving grain in Western Canada, or I would say all the infrastructure in Canada.
The review recommended that a maximum revenue entitlement program be modernized and then eliminated within seven years. Does the government plan to implement this recommendation? Why or why not?
Mr. Lapointe: At this stage, the government is still examining the report, and there are also plans to consult stakeholders and interested parties on their reactions to the report to forge how we go forward in the future with a vision for transportation more broadly. A response to that specific recommendation would or would not come in that future. For the moment, we're still looking at the report, seeing what it means, and also inquiring with interested parties about what their view and their take is on the recommendation.
Senator Mockler: Mr. Chair, before I go to my last question, I have a comment. Itis important to move our grain.
Senator Eaton: Before this year's harvest. There's still some in siloes.
Senator Mockler: Absolutely. I want to bring that to your attention. I think it is very important.
Mr. Leduc, when Senator Neufeld asked a question, you mentioned New Brunswick. I'm from New Brunswick. What's your relationship vis-à-vis New Brunswick, and how have you improved safety in New Brunswick?
Mr. Leduc: I believe it's Shelly Dauphinee who is sitting on our council of governors as a representative for New Brunswick, although a slight technicality: Her appointment has expired and is part of that GIC process that is being renewed. I think the conversation with all of the provinces really happens at the council of governors table, where we discuss what the issues and priorities are and what CCOHS can do to help in each one of those provinces.
The Chair: I would like to make sure we have a chance to ask you folks something, because you are, I guess, the guinea pig of Minister Brison's program, the Treasury Board, of helping to establish the new model. You are finance folks, so this should hopefully be something that falls into your crankcase, if you like, in terms of giving us some explanation of sort of where you are, where you are going to go, and how the next period of time is going to unfold. But before we get to that, we have a second round of questions.
Senator Marshall: I wanted to go back to contaminated sites. I have a document. It's a couple of years old. It came off the government website. It says the Federal Contaminated Sites Inventory lists over 21,000 federal sites, and it includes confirmed contaminated sites, suspected contaminated sites and about 9,000 closed sites where remediation was either completed or not required. The confirmed contaminated sites, would that be the 100 that were mentioned earlier?
Mr. Corbin: It would form part of it, yes.
The Chair: Hold on. You said part of it?
Mr. Corbin: It is over 100.
Senator Marshall: So the confirmed would be about 100 or 100-plus?
Mr. Corbin: Yes, and we will get you the exact number of those sites.
Senator Marshall: That would be great. Thank you. What's the status of the Contaminated Sites Action Plan? It is sunsetted, is it?
Mr. Lapointe: Correct.
Senator Marshall: Is there any funding provided this year to carry on that program?
Mr. Lapointe: For the moment, we don't know. At this stage, it has sunset, and we're hopeful that there will be some renewals or some funding coming to help continue the remediation.
Senator Marshall: For example, maybe in Supplementary Estimates (A)?
Mr. Lapointe: We will see.
Senator Marshall: Okay. In the document that I had, it listed off a couple of high-priority projects, and one of them is 5 Wing Goose Bay. Is that project completed?
The Chair: Where is that, senator?
Senator Marshall: That's in Labrador.
Mr. Lapointe: Is that ours or Defence? It could be Defence; it could be us. I would have to check.
Senator Marshall: Could you give me an update on that one?
Mr. Lapointe: Certainly.
Senator Marshall: I'm especially interested in that one. There's no funding provided. It's an environmental issue. I would think that that would be a program the government would want to continue on with because it is an environmental project.
Moving on to the Labrador coastal airstrips, I notice there's $1 million provided for that. Is that as a result of an agreement or a negotiation with the provincial government? Because $1 million doesn't do a whole lot.
Mr. Lapointe: It is. It goes back several years. I'm just going to find my fact sheet here for that. It goes back to 1982, an agreement with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. Since 2010-11, we have contributed about $7 million to 12 airstrips.
Senator Marshall: How do you arrive at the $1 million? Is that the amount stipulated in the agreement or is every year what you can afford to pay? How is the amount determined?
Mr. Lapointe: It is approximate. The set amount is a million, every year. Sometimes there's funding available that we can redirect, depending on the projects that have to be done.
Senator Marshall: Would you know now the airstrips in which communities are going to be receiving some upgrading? Would you know that now?
Mr. Lapointe: No, I don't. I've got the list of the 12, if you were looking for that.
Senator Marshall: Okay, but we don't know which ones you are going to work on this year?
Mr. Lapointe: It depends on the projects.
Senator Marshall: The one we talked about earlier, the grant to the Province of British Columbia in respect to the provision of ferry and coastal freight and passenger services, is the Marine Atlantic subsidy in your budget?
Mr. Lapointe: The Marine Atlantic funding, no. That is in the Marine Atlantic estimates.
Senator Marshall: The one for British Columbia, was that as a result of negotiations between the provincial and federal governments?
Mr. Lapointe: Back in the early 1970s, yes.
Senator Marshall: Because we don't get any funding in Newfoundland. I just wanted to compare what we're getting to what other provinces are getting. I'm just making sure we get our fair share.
I will now go to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. Are you subject to special examination by the OAG?
Mr. Leduc: From a financial statement perspective?
Senator Marshall: No. You have private sector auditors, don't you?
Mr. Leduc: We do. We used to have private sector auditors do it on behalf of the OAG, and that requirement was repealed, I believe, in 2012-13. I could be wrong. But we did go out to tender and continued getting an audit.
Senator Marshall: The Auditor General conducts what he calls special examinations every 12 years or something. Would you be subject to a special examination by them? Does the OAG have any authority to go into your organization?
Mr. Leduc: I would imagine they do. What we have had is the Comptroller General's audit group come in and do a controls audit.
Senator Marshall: That was going to be my next question. So they do some sort of assessment or review?
Mr. Leduc: Yes.
Senator Marshall: What precipitated the change in the formula? We talked earlier about what happens to your surplus and deficit. Why did it change? Did something happen?
Mr. Leduc: Going forward? Are you talking about the new system?
Senator Marshall: Yes.
Mr. Leduc: Quite frankly, the old system wasn't going to be able to help us fund the growth that we needed to achieve our objectives, and so it was something that we took direction from the Council of Governors as part of the strategic plan that we needed to grow. Everybody is very excited about that and looking forward to impacting more Canadians in more workplaces.
The next step is we need to set the table to be able to do that. I had conversations with the Expenditure Management Sector at Treasury Board Secretariat. We talked about different options. We talked about is there a possibility to increase the cap on operating budget carry-forwards, for example, and some different options available to us. They worked with their legal counsel and came up with a solution that works great.
Senator Marshall: When we were talking earlier, we were talking about getting so much of your funding from the federal government and then you raise so much yourself.
Mr. Leduc: Yes.
Senator Marshall: What percentage would be provided by the federal government and what percentage would you raise through providing goods and services to third parties?
Mr. Leduc: Roughly it's about 50/50.
Senator Marshall: It is 50/50?
Mr. Leduc: Yes. So for 2016-17, we have $3.97 million allocated for salaries, and to put that in perspective, our payroll is about $7 million. Then we have operating expenditures over and above that to cover.
Senator Marshall: So if the split is 50/50, that results in breakeven, does it?
Mr. Leduc: Yes. It's going to be very difficult to forecast a year out what the revenue profile will be. We tend to particularly have a very heavy Q4 as far as revenue. We are looking at multi-year spending now under this new authority and making sure that we can invest the dollars to better provide that information and to grow our services and the quality of services we can provide.
I'll give you an example. In the past, where the revenue dollars weren't coming in at the targeted $4.3 million, one of the first things to be cut was capital spending. Much of what we deliver is online. We were running it off of very old servers and IT infrastructure, which then increases the risk that we'll be offline and so on and so forth. Going forward, we'll be able to adequately plan to mitigate those risks.
Senator Marshall: That's something the Comptroller General would look at, your services and what services you're providing and that you're meeting your targets and things like that. So do you use Shared Services Canada?
Mr. Leduc: We do, yes.
Senator Marshall: And Transport Canada obviously does also.
The Chair: Would it be fair to put a supplementary question following Senator Marshall's to ask you, Mr. Leduc, whether you have been through a reorganization or are you going through reorganization? You're restructuring how you're financing and utilizing your funds moving forward. You've had some personnel changes, it appears. Is it safe to say that you've gone through a reorganization?
Mr. Leduc: I think it's safe to say that. It's been an evolving one. One of the priorities for us is to identify the right skill sets that we need and maintain that technical expertise, maintain our reputation as that centre of excellence for occupational health and safety. That's not to say that, for example, ladder safety is not important anymore. Of course it's very important, but it's important for us to recruit experts in, for example, mental health. So we are looking at doing that.
I would suggest that the new president and CEO, when appointed, will obviously have a huge role in sort of leading the next vision for CCOHS.
The Chair: How has your relationship been with Shared Services? That's what Senator Marshall was waiting for me to ask.
Mr. Leduc: We are a client of Shared Services. My understanding is that we have the option to go to Shared Services for certain things and not for other things. I will need to confirm exactly what those details are, if you want those details, because we are a bit of a unique organization.
Senator Eaton: I'll continue asking Mr. Leduc questions. When I made that joke about mental health in the Senate, I'm wondering, as part of your mandate to educate, how would I know if I were working in an office and I thought I had mental health issues or it was brought on by people, whatever? How would I know that you're there to help me or as a resource? Do you advertise? I've seen I think on American television mental health issues in an office.
Mr. Leduc: Yes. We have a limited ability to advertise, I would suggest, because of the cost and obviously the regulations.
Senator Eaton: Shouldn't that be part of your mandate?
Mr. Leduc: What we do is use social media, our website and our partners to really drive traffic to the site and to the resources that we have. If you're speaking about television advertising, we don't do any television advertising.
Senator Eaton: Don't you think that should be part of your mandate, to do a broad forum of education for people?
Mr. Leduc: Yes, and that is part of the mandate. It's just the mechanism as to how we can deliver it.
The Chair: That's an opportunity with a new CEO to clarify your mandate, to see what you add on, if you can add anything on in terms of broadening your mandate, if I understand what you're saying correctly?
Mr. Leduc: Absolutely. We have collaborated with other groups where we've developed a mental health application, for example, where you can sort of self-evaluate, answer a series of questions. It helps guide you as to where you might be. We are working with CIHR on another e-mental health tool and the possibility of bringing that to Canada and implementing that in workplaces. There's a lot of work going on, but as far as specific advertising, it's not something that we've done.
Senator Eaton: Maybe when you come here next year, we'll see a line in the budget.
To pick up, Mr. Lapointe, on Senator Neufeld's question about oil spills, I'm thinking now there's more and more emphasis on getting our resources to tidewater, both east and west. I understand that if there's a spill on a river, it's provincial, but once the tanker reaches the sea or leaves the port, how far does your responsibility extend? Three miles? Say there's a big spill two miles out of Halifax. Is that your ministry's responsibility? Is it the tanker company's responsibility? Is it a shared responsibility?
Mr. Lapointe: It's generally a shared responsibility, but again, in terms of where the cut-off is, I'll have to get back to you.
Senator Eaton: I think it will be very useful for us to know that, especially with pipelines now. Have you done any contingency planning for when and if there is a pipeline that goes to the east and the Northern Gateway gets to tidewater on the West Coast? Have you started to think about contingency plans?
Mr. Lapointe: I'm not aware that we have, but I will check that as well.
Senator Eaton: And if there's any money put aside for that.
Mr. Lapointe: In terms of funding set aside for that, I can tell you no, not at this stage.
Senator Eaton: It would be nice to know if there are contingency plans.
Mr. Lapointe: Okay.
The Chair: If I could just ask a couple of questions, and then we'll get into the new role or the new method that your department will be potential guinea pigs for.
Just going back to that question of contaminated sites, you'd mentioned that there were about 100 sites. But then Senator Marshall asked a question and you brought up a point. Was it 21,000 or 2,100 contaminated sites?
Mr. Lapointe: 21,000.
The Chair: Just a simple question: If you had the responsibility for those sites as part of your mandate, as part of the clean water — because I would assume it's probably something to do with water, or it could be oil, whatever. What's the plan? That seems to be an astronomical number. They probably go back significant years with more recent and then longer term. What's the plan?
Mr. Lapointe: I believe the 21,000 figure is across the country for all of Canada, the Government of Canada, not Transport.
The Chair: It's all of Canada?
Mr. Lapointe: Correct. We only have —
The Chair: Mr. Corbin, you mentioned 21,000 so I just thought that referred to what you said after Senator Neufeld corrected me, which he should have, when I went into provincial jurisdiction. The 21,000 is federal and provincial, and it's the country?
Mr. Lapointe: I think it's what we have registered in Canada.
The Chair: How many would you folks have? Did you say 9,000 sites?
Mr. Lapointe: No, we've got 100.
The Chair: You only have 100 sites across the whole country?
Mr. Lapointe: I will give you the exact number when we come back. We have a small portion of that, which are still significant. In terms of how we go about it, we have to determine what's on the site first. We do that through consultants usually. We hire firms that are experts in that, and then we map out a project that will give us a state of decontamination. It's often over a number of years that we do that.
The Chair: One other simple question, but not too simple: With the Lac Megantic situation, where are you folks with your responsibility with that? Is it at 95 per cent complete, 100 per cent complete, or 70 per cent complete? What was your role in terms of clean-up, oversight or giving contracts out? Could you give us two seconds on that? Where are you?
Mr. Lapointe: Transport was involved certainly on the rail safety side, but in terms of the decontamination, I will have to verify. It was not with us.
The Chair: Could you tell us who it was with?
Mr. Lapointe: It was probably provincial, mostly.
The Chair: Another provincial issue.
Mr. Lapointe: Quebec, and Environment Canada was probably involved in some measure.
The Chair: Did the federal monies that went to Lac Megantic go through Transport?
Mr. Lapointe: I believe it went through DEC, Développement Économique Canada pour les régions du Québec, but I will verify that for you.
The Chair: A couple of months ago in the papers — this may be a sensitive issue, but I'll ask about it anyways — there appeared to be some issue within your organization in terms of execution, and it was written up in some of the financial journals. Are you folks going through, or have you been through, some form of a corporate self-searching exercise? And if so, how does that position you in terms of being the department that Minister Brison is looking at to help re-align how the financial system within the government is going to work?
Mr. Lapointe: I think it's useful maybe to separate those two things.
The Chair: Absolutely. I'm waiting for your response.
Mr. Lapointe: First, we are going through some measures on our budget. Last year, ultimately, we over-hired, so we've had to re-adjust our budgets internally, and we're continuing to manage that situation. We're ensuring that our overall staffing numbers are coming down. We've got a staffing management board in place and we're reviewing every staffing action that's brought to us.
The Chair: What type of numbers are you talking about?
Mr. Lapointe: Right now, we've come down over 100 since September. Our attrition rate, if we look at historical numbers, is about 30 employees a month through natural attrition.
The Chair: What's your total staff number?
Mr. Lapointe: Total staff currently, permanent and temporary, is 5,290, as of this week. That is coming down regularly, at a steady pace. We still have some work to do on getting that back into a zone that is sustainable.
The Chair: What's the zone?
Mr. Lapointe: The zone is probably a reduction of a couple of hundred more.
Senator Neufeld: Under contributions: This goes back to the contribution program for the Centre of Excellence for Marine Transportation of Oil and Liquified Natural Gas. Where is that centre?
Mr. Lapointe: That's in Vancouver.
Senator Neufeld: That's in Vancouver. It's been cut from $3.7 million to $1.36 million. Can you tell me why?
Mr. Lapointe: That is a program that is set in time. We had a ramp-up period and decline over, I think, three or four years. That's all the funding that we'll get.
Senator Neufeld: It started out with $3.7 million? That was its first fund?
Mr. Lapointe: I believe itt was, yes.
Senator Neufeld: They didn't get anything in 2014-15, so I assume that was the initial set-up.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
Senator Neufeld: What we would see from here on forward that would be $1.36 million?
Mr. Lapointe: $1.36 million, Vancouver — that is sunsetting, I think, next year, so the last year for funding will be 2017-18.
Senator Neufeld: What did they do that you can get a centre of excellence up that cost $3.7 million to start with, and then cut by $2.3 million for a couple of years and then sunset it? I don't think we're going to sunset the shipping of oil out of the Port of Vancouver, and I don't think there would be any liquefied natural gas that will go further north.
Mr. Lapointe: One of the objectives of the centre is to become is self-sustaining. That's part of what they're trying to do. They are launching two key studies: one is a characterization of risks from Canadian marine shipping, and the other is entitled the social and economic value of commercial marine shipping in Canada. Those are two big pieces they are conducting. Do they do that directly or through contracts? I'm not sure, but that's part of where the funding goes, and it's also a question of raising awareness and engaging stakeholders.
Senator Neufeld: Are they putting together works on the East Coast also? This is oiltransportation, not just the Port of Vancouver; this is across Canada.
Mr. Lapointe: Correct. It's not just Vancouver.
Senator Eaton: Who would do a contingency plan for a major oil spill? Would it be the Ministry of Transport or would it be Environment? It just blows my mind that we don't have one.
Mr. Lapointe: It would probably be a joint effort.
Senator Eaton: Between the two of you?
Mr. Lapointe: Or beyond that, between municipality and provincial governments.
Senator Eaton: I'm talking in federal waters, because you're the federal guys.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, we do that jointly, with others: DFO, Environment, and us, probably, but I will double-check with my colleagues.
Senator Eaton: Who would answer for it, basically?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
The Chair: Mr. Lapointe, having spent some time on the plans and priorities and looking at your four objectives and then the sub-objectives within each of the groups, it's awesome to see the number of objectives that you have. You have four outcomes, but within each outcome you have up to six or seven objectives.
From an organizational structure perspective, would you be able to send us an org chart of how your department, Transport, is set-up?
Mr. Lapointe: Certainly.
The Chair: When you're reading this information, to try to understand how you folks function, and knowing what you shared with us with 5,000-plus employees and the scope of what you need to deal with, it is very impressive. I'm just wondering, from an efficiency perspective, what type of opportunities you have as you look at the organization.
Has there been a re-org in Transport in the recent past? Wth some of the bad press that you folks received, is there some form of a reorganization going on? You set up a new method of finance for financial accounting for the whole government, but is this a combo-type of opportunity for you people?
Mr. Lapointe: In terms of major reorganizations, that goes back several years, and we're not contemplating that at this juncture.
If I can just show you quickly, it appears in the report on plans and priorities, and it is the program alignment architecture, which is this odd-looking piece. It's not entirely aligned to the actual organization, but that's how we make sense of what we do. Everything that is outlined here is essentially how we distribute the funding across the organization. That's the way the estimates are structured as well. That's the way we go about accounting for what we do.
The Chair: The reason I asked the question on organizational structure is that all of us have different management experience. I can only tell you that when running a major division of John Labatts, I had 2,000 employees and we were about a $600 million business, but we had four or five major objectives, and of course, they're subdivided out.
You have a huge organization, no comparison of $600 million compared to $6 billion or $5 billion, but the way of running businesses, if I can see the organizational structure and we can talk about it, it would be a good education for us to see how a big government department functions. It would help us in the types of questions that we could ask you folks. The next time you come hopefully you can bring some operational people, too, who can help you so that we can get those answers, which will better inform us.
Our job is to make sure that everyone is held accountable, but we all do our jobs because we have a job to do, and we want to make sure you understand that in a positive way as opposed to a negative way. We're not out here to be policeman. We're trying to understand but making sure that, hey, if we send a little note back to Mr. Leduc and say that it's evident you guys are going through a corporate reorganization, if there's anything we can do in terms of interaction and exchange, we'd love to, because there are people here with experience too. We're here to help; we're not here to destroy anybody's reputation. Just so we understand each other.
I used to teach people in business how to make objectives, and I was on a board where we had this corporation that had $1.4 billion as one of the largest charitable organizations in the country, and guess how many objectives we had? We had 39. People can't remember more than four in a department. It's human nature. That was a case of trying to help people get it down. After six years, we got it down to seven, but how many objectives can you have? If we see your organizational structure and you have it set up in a way that you can handle all of these because it's divided up, then that answers the question. That's why I asked. When you see this, the first question you ask is, "How are these guys set up?''
Mr. Lapointe: The overarching objectives you'll find in the red bands there.
The Chair: I understand. But those aren't objectives. Those are basically statements of focus, almost like a mission statement. Your objectives are the ones underneath. An objective has to be clear and measurable; it has to make people responsible, and it has to have a time frame. That's how objectives are defined. When you say "an efficient transportation system,'' that's your end result. That's what you want to see.
I'm not trying to lecture you. I am just trying to understand. When I saw that, I started asking 50 questions. Wow, this is a big, important organization. We had the minister in today, and he was asked some good questions, and I think he responded very well, but we're here to try to learn.
Could you give us an overview of what's coming down the pipe for you folks in terms of being the guinea pigs for Minister Brison's objective?
Mr. Lapointe: It's still early days. This is our first full year, starting a few weeks ago, to do this. We negotiated this or agreed to this a few years ago already with the Treasury Board, and it took that period of time to land. We'll see how it goes. It's too early to tell.
I think we'll know how it works once we have to potentially transfer funds from one vote to the other. That's where the process will determine how much of a burden that is, because previously we had one vote and we could move funds from one program to the other. If one was undersubscribed, we could move it to another on need. Now that flexibility may be reduced, and it may not, depending on what sort of pressures we're looking at, so we'll have to find out how it functions.
The Chair: If I understand correctly, Minister Brison said at this meeting we had a couple of months ago when we first came back after the Christmas break that he wants to have a budget, and once the budget is out, then you go to your Mains Estimates and then you can possibly eliminate Supplementary Estimate (A), because you'll have your budget, and then you'll have your Supplementary Estimates (B) and (C), if I understand correctly.
Maybe Senator Marshall, because you are an auditor, if you want to ask specific questions that I'm unable to ask, please do.
Senator Marshall: I think that's his intention. He hasn't really come out and said where we're going. We'd like to see main supply come out at the same time as the budget, and that would be it.
Mr. Lapointe: We'd be happy with that, too.
Senator Marshall: That would help you control your expenses and your salaries. I find that the Supplementary Estimates (A), (B) and (C) is complicating it. We're hoping, but that is a big undertaking. We're hoping that they can pilot it and that there will be some success. Of course, the other area is the pilot relating to the grants and the contributions.
In Transport, you have got your hands full. You've got several big things going on at one time. You have your pilot and you have this issue with Treasury Board oversights.
Mr. Lapointe: To clarify the pilot on grants and contributions, we'll see how it goes. It's early days. It may be very little burden for us. It may change very little in what we have to do.
Senator Marshall: Within the department, you must be finding it challenging. Those are several big projects. I would think the one on the grants would be a big project.
Mr. Lapointe: Not really. It's a division, so we took one vote, and now we have three divided under gateways and corridors, transportation, infrastructure and other. So we've bundled those.
What that will mean, if we ever need to transfer a large amount of money from one of those votes to the other, we'll see if we have to go to Treasury Board for that process and then into the estimates process.
Senator Marshall: Are you doing any work now on combining main supply with Supplementary Estimates (A), (B) and (C)? You're not doing anything on that yet?
Mr. Lapointe: That is a Treasury Board Secretariat lead, and we'll see what comes out of that process. Right now for Transport, the only thing we're piloting now is the grants and contributions.
The Chair: Where are you in that process?
Senator Marshall: When we were talking to Treasury Board, we were interested in knowing when the end date was going to be so we could look back and do an assessment of the pilot on the grants and contributions. They told us there was no end date. Do you have any idea in your mind as to when you would be able to look back and see if it was successful or not?
Mr. Lapointe: After the first year, we'll have a sense, and we had a commitment to come back after two years to make an assessment. On our gateways and corridors, those are the two funds that make up that vote, and they are sunsetting within the next few years. Those are huge amounts of money winding down to zero, and we'll see if that sort of reduces our flexibility.
Senator Marshall: Could I ask a question on salaries? It's kind of detailed, and I don't want to belabour the point, but I'm really curious. How do you control your salaries? If somebody is hired, wouldn't their salaries for the whole year be committed and put aside? My understanding was the issue was with regard to overcommitting salaries. But how can you overcommit salaries? I would have thought that for each permanent employee, at the beginning of the year you would commit the salaries for all those employees. It's put aside so you can't spend that again. How does it work in the federal government?
Mr. Lapointe: There's always some risk spending that occurs. So people will go beyond the —
Senator Marshall: That might be coming to an end.
Mr. Lapointe: There's a measure of flexibility that that affords. Controls need to be placed around that, obviously, and we've tightened up the controls we had in place to make sure that we're not going. When we say that we over- hired, part of that is going on —
Senator Marshall: Is the risk part?
Mr. Lapointe: Correct.
The Chair: You said this could take up to a couple of years?
Mr. Lapointe: For the grants and contributions, we'll know by the end of the year and will be able to document the experience we've had. We've got a commitment to go back to the board after two years, officially, and we'll sit down with them and say this is what happened, and we'll collectively assess what that meant for the department, and from your perspective, if it served parliamentarians well.
The Chair: It would be helpful to understand the process from a management perspective, if you could keep us informed. We get together periodically when we go through reviews. One of the questions that we'll be asking,because we will have Minister Brison with us soon, and he wants to talk about this roll-out, which we're vitally interested in, because it's really hard when you have a budget that comes out after your estimates.
We talk of accrual finance versus accounting and cash, and it is problematic in a big operation like the government. We're talking about $260 billion worth of expenditures, so it's a huge corporation. We're just trying to understand.
You said that you'll know within a year or two where you're at.
Mr. Lapointe: On the grants and contributions.
The Chair: Right, and that's just a portion of it. The Treasury Board is working on the other element of the same side.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
The Chair: Do you people have a written plan on how this is going to unfold? Is there a five-page overview or some form of a document?
Mr. Lapointe: I haven't seen anything, and we're talking about the broader Treasury Board plan.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Lapointe: I haven't seen anything yet. That will come in the future. What it will mean for us is how we report. The potential lining up of the budget in Main Estimates is entirely out of our hands. We just wait until Treasury Board lets us know what they want departments to do.
The Chair: Colleagues, are there any other questions?
Senator Mitchell: When you say "at-risk hiring'' that means you hire thinking some people may go so you'll have some salaries left over?
Mr. Lapointe: Yes, essentially, because as I mentioned, depending on the sector, attrition rates can be as high as 12 per cent, 13 per cent.
Senator Mitchell: And then it wasn't.
Mr. Lapointe: In some cases it wasn't, and some managers went above and beyond.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you.
Senator Neufeld: On the Centre of Excellence for Oil and LNG, there must be a mandate set out by Transport Canada about what you expect them to do, or something like that. Can you send to us, through the clerk, any of that information so that we can look at it?
Mr. Lapointe: Absolutely.
Senator Neufeld: To see what's happening and follow that a little bit. I think there's a fair amount of interest in that.
Mr. Lapointe: Yes.
The Chair: Mr. Lapointe, Mr. Corbin and Mr. Leduc, thank you very much. Wednesday is always a big day for many of us here. We go through two or three committee meetings. We start at eight o'clock in the morning and finish at nine o'clock at night. We're honoured to have had you with us. We hope that you found this an interesting exchange. Our objective is trying to ask pertinent questions that will help us learn more to do our job as a committee.
We have two studies we will be undertaking, one being for infrastructure. We didn't really ask you questions of infrastructure, but it would be interesting to learn what type of infrastructure projects you're involved in,or horizontally involved, but we can maybe take that at another time.
The other study, of course, is the aging population in terms and how it's going to be managed moving forward with the way that transfer payments were set up historically and what will happen in the next year or two.
We thank you for coming in. We hope you enjoyed the experience. We certainly thank you. We would really like to get those answers you committed to, and we will follow up with you to make sure we do.
Mr. Leduc, I hope you didn't think I was coming after you, but sometimes I just do that method to test people to see how fast they react. You did a hell of a job, and you've got a great haircut.
We thank everybody who has watched tonight.
(The committee adjourned.)