Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
National Finance
Issue No. 6 - Evidence - April 19, 2016 (Evening Meeting)
OTTAWA, Tuesday, April 19, 2016
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance met this day at 6:33 p.m. to examine the expenditures set out in the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017.
Senator Larry Smith (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening, everyone. Mr. Minister, we welcome you and everyone 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.
This evening, we are pleased to welcome to our committee the President of the Treasury Board, the Honourable Scott Brison, P.C., M.P. Minister, we thank you for being with us today. We appreciate that you have a busy schedule, as does the team that is with you.
[Translation]
This evening, we are continuing our study of the Main Estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2017. We have already held a few meetings as part of this study and met with numerous departments and agency representatives.
[English]
We are anxious to hear what you have to say about the funds requested by the Treasury Board in the Main Estimates 2016-17 and your view regarding how changing and better aligning the financial documents with parliamentary requirements could be accomplished.
Just so everyone understands, the minister had a meeting as we reconvened after the Christmas break. There were about 100 to 125 MPs, with some senators, who attended. Some of us here were there. We had an interesting time and had a chance to meet with the minister. Perhaps the result of that quick connection was that we were able to hook up for tonight.
The two issues, as I understand it, will be the 2016-17 estimates and then, of course, the concept of moving forward and the realignment of how the finances of the government will be reported — if that's correct, sir; I hope I'm saying the right things.
Tonight, on our side, we'd like to introduce the folks here in terms of senators.
[Translation]
We have a new recruit on the team, the former editor in chief of La Presse, André Pratte.
[English]
We have Senator Percy Mockler; Senator Beth Marshall; Senator Victor Oh, filling in for another senator who couldn't be here; Senator Kelvin Ogilvie — thank you for helping out; Deputy Chair Senator Larry Campbell; Senator Diane Bellemare; and Senator Grant Mitchell from Alberta.
Minister, the floor is yours.
Hon. Scott Brison, P.C., M.P., President of the Treasury Board: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm delighted to be here with you tonight to discuss the 2016-17 Main Estimates.
I must say it's very intimidating being here with Senator Kelvin Ogilvie. Kelvin in his role in the Senate plays an important role, but he also has another important role in that he's my constituent in Kings-Hants. He grew up not far away, with roots in Summerville in Hants County, just up the road from Chéverie. I worked with him when he was president of Canada's finest undergraduate university, Acadia University. It's great to have a fellow from Kings-Hants here and someone from the Hants Shore with us tonight.
I've worked with a number of you over the years, and I'm really pleased to be here and have the opportunity to discuss the Main Estimates and ways we can better align the estimates and budget process on a go-forward basis.
As you know, we have a first-rate, world-class public service, and we have some of those folks with us tonight. We have Yaprak Baltacioglu, my deputy minister and the Secretary of the Treasury Board; Renée LaFontaine, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Sector; and somebody with whom you have a long-standing relationship, I understand: Brian Pagan, the Assistant Secretary of the Expenditure Management Sector. To have Brian here most of the time and then me coming, it's kind of like you being used to the Rolling Stones and you're inviting in Cheap Trick. I don't know how much I can help, but if there are any questions Brian can't answer, I'm looking forward to trying my best. After my remarks, we'll be happy to answer questions you may have.
As you know, on February 23, the Government of Canada tabled its 2016-17 Main Estimates. These Main Estimates provide information to support the government's request to Parliament to approve $250.1 billion in spending to deliver programs and services for the fiscal year starting April 1, 2016.
[Translation]
They include funding for significant initiatives noted in each separate organization's Main Estimates. These Main Estimates reflect spending proposals that are already planned and they represent up-to amounts.
I'd like to discuss an important issue with you now — the misalignment of the budget and estimate processes.
[English]
As the chair said earlier, we had a meeting a few weeks ago, and some you were there — Senator Marshall and Senator L. Smith were there — with other parliamentarians to discuss some of the ideas to better align the budget and estimates process.
I want to give you an example of where the process is not really helpful in terms of understanding what is actually in the budget and the estimates. If you look at the Main Estimates, you might ask the question: How can it be that a department like Indigenous and Northern Affairs is having its funding both decreased and increased? You may draw that conclusion based on the fact that Budget 2016 announced unprecedented investments in First Nations, Inuit and Metis people, totalling $8.4 billion over the next five years; yet these Main Estimates we are discussing tonight show a decrease for Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada of over half a billion dollars. This relates to the fact that we now expect to need less in 2016-17 than we had previously forecast for items such as claim agreements, including land claims and settlements relating to residential schools, but it is confusing.
[Translation]
It is a perfect example of why we need to look at the realignment of the Main Estimates and the budget. With the Main Estimates currently introduced before the federal budget each year, there is no opportunity for the Main Estimates to reflect the priorities that the government lays out in its budget.
[English]
This illustrates the confusion created by the lack of alignment between mains and the budget and the resulting effect on transparency.
These are the main reports to Parliament on the government's finances. We want to make this complex process of planning, spending and tracking of tax dollars less complex and more timely and transparent.
I've talked to Senator Willie Moore about this. I've also talked to former Senator Lowell Murray about it. A number of you have strong views on this. If I may, earlier today, I presented to a parliamentary committee, and one of the members of the parliamentary committee attacked the Senate, or expenses of the Senate. I will have you know I defended the honour of this institution by reminding the members of that committee that, in the Senate, on issues like this, there is a lot of expertise and good work done. That is a total aside, but I recognize there are some of you here who, in the provinces, have had tremendous expertise in terms of the management of government spending.
It's clear we need to better align the budget and estimates process. It's why we've started discussions now with parliamentarians and other stakeholders to improve the process and to give parliamentarians more timely and better tools to hold the government accountable.
Australia is one jurisdiction where the Main Estimates are presented after the budget, as an example. This practice allows for significant budget measures to be included in the Main Estimates, which helps to speed up the delivery on the government's priorities, but it also helps provide a more coherent flow of information to Parliament, where the budget sets an overall fiscal plan and then, in this contex,t the government asks Parliament to approve the appropriations that flow in the same time period as the budget.
The spending plan is set out in the estimates and is more easily reconciled to the budget's forecast for expenses.
[Translation]
Closer to home, Ontario has a similar process and gets top marks from the C.D. Howe Institute for the clarity of presentation in their financial documents, from budget forecasts to appropriations to year-end results. I think we can look at models such as these, and learn and improve our own systems.
[English]
Returning to the 2016-17 Main Estimates for our department, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, we're seeking Parliament's approval or authority for $6.6 billion in funds, which represents a decrease of $321.6 million from last year. Of this $6.6 billion, $209.5 million would go to supporting the operations of the department.
The remaining $6.36 billion would support central votes for the rest of government, for which the Treasury Board is responsible. We're a central agency so we work across departments and agencies. These other central votes would apply, for instance, to public service insurance, government contingencies and requirements for public service pay in areas such as parental or maternity leave or severance pay. These funds are centrally managed by Treasury Board and are transferred to departments and agencies throughout the fiscal year, as required.
If you need more information about Treasury Board's plans for 2016-17, in March I tabled in the house the departmental Report on Plans and Priorities.
I would add that an interim supply bill seeking Parliament's approval to spend funds in line with these Main Estimates was introduced in the house on March 21. The interim supply sought approval for monies that would cover planned government expenditures for the first three months of the fiscal year.
With respect to new expenditures announced in the recent budget, according to the current parliamentary supply process, we will begin to present the details of those in Supplementary Estimates (A), which we table next month.
I would like to bring you up to date on some of the work we're doing to improve the oversight of government spending.
These Main Estimates include a pilot project with the vote structure for Transport Canada. In the last Main Estimates, this department had three votes based on the kinds of things the funding is for — operating expenditures, capital expenditures and grants and contributions. In these Main Estimates, we've expanded the grants and contributions part into three program-based or purpose-driven votes. Parliament now has a clearer indication of both what the funds are buying and which departmental programs are supported by those funds.
This pilot gives parliamentarians and Canadians more detailed information in a more usable format. The ability to exercise oversight is the most important role parliamentarians can play on behalf of citizens. To do it properly, parliamentarians need access to accurate, timely and understandable information about government spending.
I was saying to Senator Marshall before that if we deliberately tried to create a system that is difficult to understand or explain to people, you would not be able to do better than we have with the current estimates process. A lot of parliamentarians have been here a long time and still have trouble with it. If parliamentarians are grappling with understanding the estimates, how can we expect Canadian citizens to? We intend on working closely with parliamentarians to make improvements.
We've already taken some concrete steps to improve transparency. In December, for instance, I came to the House of Commons in Committee of the Whole to present Supplementary Estimates (B), which included important new spending to support the Syrian Refugees Project.
I remember the discussion with the Government House Leader. We had a choice at that time where our government could have used a less transparent approach, and that could have been a Governor General warrant process, as an example, but we chose to give all parliamentarians an opportunity to debate and question this spending.
[Translation]
There's an annex to the supplementary estimates that provides Parliament with an early indication of the lapses expected for this fiscal year.
[English]
In terms of accountability, projecting lapses is a very important step forward, which was recognized by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who said that this step represents an important increase in fiscal transparency.
As we move forward, we intend on taking further steps to provide more useful information in a more useful format to parliamentarians.
I certainly look forward to working with this committee and with the house committee as we do this as partners in this process. I would very much like to return to this committee, if you'd like to at some point in the future have a longer discussion to get your input Feel free tonight. Some of you have tremendous experience in this area, and I'd be very much interested in your suggestions as to ways we can improve the alignment of the budget and estimate processes.
Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing your questions and advice.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Minister.
Senator Mitchell: Thanks, minister. It's great to see you, and thanks for taking your time to speak to us. I'm not absolutely certain this is within your purview, but I think it is, and that's the management of bonds. Is it your department that actually manages the bond portfolio? If so, could you give me some idea about how you manage that, and how you're trying to put as much out, as long as you can, given that interest rates are so low?
Mr. Brison: That's more a question for Finance, but you asked me about bond yields, now. I know you have a finance background. One of the reasons we believe now is a good time to invest in infrastructure, as an example, is that with historically low bond yields and interest rates — and if you take real interest rates actually being negative — it gives us a real opportunity to fix crumbling infrastructure and to create jobs and growth as we do that. This low-yield environment gives us an opportunity to do something significant to create jobs and growth that are needed, but also to create a more competitive economy and more livable communities.
We're taking the advice of people like David Dodge, Kevin Lynch, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers and others on this. It is a unique time we're in right now; we believe it's probably the best time, in terms of our lifetime, to fix infrastructure and to invest, including into research infrastructure in Canadian universities. Broadly, we have an historic opportunity to invest smartly as a result of this low bond yield environment you described.
Senator Mitchell: Thank you. I'd like to pursue, a little bit, the simplification of the estimates. You alluded to the Australian example and the possibility of budget interim estimates and then Main Estimates. Why has it evolved the other way? Is there any advantage to that at all? Could you just say next year we're going to do it in the order that I just outlined?
Mr. Brison: I've been around this place for a while, and I don't know why it evolved the way it has. I suspect that if Lowell Murray were here, he would probably be able to tell us.
I actually don't know the answer to that, but I know I feel very strongly about it. My frustration with the process that exists now developed over years. I've been a Member of Parliament almost 19 years and, for a large part of that, I was in opposition in more than one political party. In cases where I tried to question governments on spending, as a member of parliament, I found the information wanting. My thirst for more transparency, openness and a better process emanates from my having spent more time as a parliamentarian than as a minister, but really recognizing the responsibility we have as parliamentarians — and I say that collectively, as all parliamentarians — to hold whatever government is in office accountable, and the current system doesn't help that.
Senator Mitchell: Exactly. One of the concerns we all share is that when we look at Main Estimates, they don't bear any relationship whatsoever to what is actually going to be spent. To date, this year's Main Estimates total $250 billion; we spent $290 billion last year and we'll probably spend $300 billion this year.
Do you need legislation, or is it as easy as just saying we're going to bring the budget in in February and bring interim supply in at that time? Because we do anyway, and then Main Estimates would come in May. What would it take to change that, beyond will?
Mr. Brison: A change in house standing orders is what it would take. I can tell you that our department is working very closely with Finance. Minister Morneau and I discuss this regularly and, between the minister and I and our officials, there is a strong sense of agreement, and the Prime Minister understands the importance of this.
I met with the Australian Minister of Finance a couple months ago at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos to talk about this. We can learn a lot from what Australia is doing, but also from what some provincial governments are doing. My understanding is that Ontario and Quebec do a better job of alignment, so we can learn from provincial governments and some other countries' governments.
I think we have a real opportunity here, but it's going to take some time. Part of what we want to do is to actually get members of parliament, broadly — members of parliament and senators — to understand the estimates process, to make it more understandable, but then to also help parliamentarians become better at holding the government to account. Helping them scrutinize what we're doing I think would help create better legislation.
There is a role for parliamentary committees, by the way. We intend on respectfully engaging house and Senate committees, and sometimes that means legislation. We're not going to be operating committees in the House of Commons, for instance, as branch plants of minister's offices. Parliamentarians will have an opportunity to be parliamentarians, and from time to time committees will disagree with our government. I can't understand why they possibly would want to do that, but I bet they will from time to time, and that's probably a good thing.
Senator Mitchell: Maybe this is Pollyanna's brother speaking, but is there any chance you can envision a budgetary process so disciplined and robust that you actually diminish or do away with supplementary estimates? They are an improvement on special warrants, certainly, because they at least are debated, but they do represent an after-the-fact kind of ''whoops.''
Mr. Brison: I'm going to bring in Yaprak, or perhaps Brian or Renee, to answer that. I believe we can move in that direction. One of the things I noted almost immediately after starting at Treasury Board was the alignment of my views, which were quite strongly held as a parliamentarian who has dealt with this process and been frustrated with this process for a long time. Then I came into a department where these people had done a lot of the work on it. I was pleasantly surprised because they had done a lot of the ground work, so it was this wonderful story of minister meets department, department meets minister. They had done a lot of the heavy lifting already. I just show up and am quite enthused about it.
Yaprak Baltacioglu, Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat: From our perspective, as the Treasury Board Secretariat, we are the ones, after the budget happens, that actually have to put it through the system and then get the departments to implement. We see the implementation phase, and if nothing is really done and it's going to take anywhere between three to eighteen months to try to deal with that implementation, the challenge is quite frustrating for us as public servants, because we usually like to get our money, put our programs in place and start delivering. That was the first thing.
Then, through meetings with the Australians and asking them basic questions about how it works there and watching how they work, we found that Finance and Treasury — they are reversed, and treasury is finance there and finance is treasury — work hand-in-hand. First, it improves the quality of what goes into the budget, and the readiness of the proposals become more rich, and it takes very little time to put it into the estimates. Hopefully, we will not need sups (A), (B) and (C), but we probably will need supplementary estimates because things happen, and if that happens, it will be a smaller chunk. The supplementary estimates wouldn't be your largest one. So that's what we're hoping.
As the minister said, the minister came and we had our proposals, and it turned out he had the same proposals in his mind, so it's a pretty fortunate alignment. We're hoping to align with Parliament because it's good for everybody.
Mr. Brison: To that end, earlier today we offered to provide to the committee some of the work that has been done by Treasury Board Secretariat, and we can provide it to your committee as well. As we do more work, it would be nice to have some level of communication back and forth where Treasury Board can actually be a resource in this.
If I may, Mr. Chair, one thing that the Prime Minister has spoken of, and it has been reported, is the focus on results that our government is really putting in place. We're focusing on establishing metrics, milestones and measuring results. In government, generally 90 per cent of the effort goes to developing a policy, and then we just kind of assume that the results will take care of themselves, when in fact, if you are in business sometimes, you find that the real focus is on execution. Government is not business, but one of the things we can do better in government is execution.
You can't manage what you don't measure. The wheelhouse of Treasury Board Secretariat ought to be — as well as the results delivery unit of Privy Council, which has been established under our Prime Minister — doing a better job of establishing these metrics and measuring results.
We want the Prime Minister to hold us accountable through mandate letters and the management of results, and making our mandate letters public actually made it easier for Canadians and parliamentarians to hold us to account. But further, fixing this estimates process is going to create better results by increasing and improving accountability.
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: I would like to stay on the topic of this major exercise in accountability to Canadians. I have been on this committee since 2012, and it took me a while to understand how the whole process worked. Having a better understanding of it all now, I've noticed that the estimates contain significant changes.
The Senate's role is to examine your proposed expenditures without being able to ascertain how the money was actually spent. On one hand, we, as senators, do not examine the public accounts. On the other, thanks to Senator Moore's bill, which Senator Murray had previously introduced, I understood that the idea was for Parliament to have oversight over borrowing and debt increases, which are connected to spending.
In the Senate, we examine the entire budget, the revenue sources, but not the management of public funds. Managing public funds means managing the deficit, because if there is a deficit, there is debt, and if there is debt, there is interest owing on that debt. If interest rates rise, the financial picture becomes a lot less rosy and we could find ourselves in trouble. I'm not sure whether Treasury Board was involved in that review to get parliamentarians to deal with borrowing.
As President of the Treasury Board, what is your take on all this? Do you support the Senate's taking a deeper look at the country's broader fiscal balance? Where do you stand on broadening senators' scope of study beyond proposed spending?
Mr. Brison: I appreciate your question, but I have one for you, in turn, seeing as I'm not certain of what the Senate is considering studying.
[English]
The departmental performance reports, for instance, are available. Does your committee study our departmental performance reports currently?
The Chair: The truth is that we're getting more involved in studying the performance reports and plans and priorities, et cetera. I think it's important for us to position where we come from also. In the last couple of years, we started to focus more on trying to understand not just numbers but the implications of objectives and results, and trying to tie finance with the results. For us, it's become more of a priority to make sure that we look at plans and priorities.
Of course, Senator Marshall, being a former Auditor General of Newfoundland, talked about getting involved in understanding public accounts so that we can get the total picture, if you like, of the government operations.
Our objective is to make sure that we hold people to account and we also understand what people are doing. One of the questions that will be asked of you is with the Department of Transport, which I understand is the guinea pig to sort of get this whole ball rolling. We would like to understand how you're doing it with these folks. We had them in last week and we did ask the question. I will not say that there was confusion, but I'm not sure of the certainty of knowing exactly what the expectations are. I'm not trying to embarrass anyone.
Mr. Brison: The question I asked is in terms of currently we have our plans and priorities, and then our performance reports as departments. Frankly, they're helpful but they're not as easily understood as they ought to be. We're looking towards, on a go-forward basis, making them easier for parliamentarians and for Canadians to understand and use the information, moving towards reports on plans and reports on results such that you can, on an annual basis, on an ongoing basis, actually take a look at what the department said they were going to do in the next year and what they actually did. You can actually measure the delta between what we planned to do and what we did. Ministers will have to explain the difference. There will be all kinds of reasons, and sometimes very legitimate reasons, why something didn't happen sor that you couldn't execute fully in that year, but at least parliamentarians will be able to hold us to account.
Is that helpful?
[Translation]
Senator Bellemare: You partly answered my question. Since we study planned expenditures in detail, indeed, if we also looked at performance and results, that would partly address the issue. The other part of the issue, though, has more to do with the macroeconomic aspect. Finances also come into play. Both dimensions play a role.
The Standing Senate Committee on National Finance is the committee charged with studying public finances. We have no control over revenues, but we study spending and we study the budget bill. So we review all of that. When it comes to the broader fiscal levers — for the moment anyway — we have no oversight over the deficit, for example.
We did have oversight authority prior to 2008, when Parliament had to approve any debt increases over $4 billion. The government did away with that in 2008, however. Now, the budget has a provision indicating that, going forward, the government will reinstate Parliament's oversight authority over debt increases but didn't include any details.
I imagine you don't have any further information on that right now. A bill dealing with that will be introduced in the next few months, and I encourage you to read it. When we studied Senator Moore's bill, we had some concerns because we were in a period of financial crisis and let the Department of Finance convince us that we didn't have to worry about all that, given the urgency of the situation. Today, things are different. We know there is going to be a deficit and we would like to be able to examine the various levers of fiscal balance in order to be able to question how the debt is being managed internally and externally, and so forth.
That, more or less, falls within your mandate, as well as the Minister of Finance's, I would think.
Mr. Brison: Yes, I share that responsibility with my colleague, Minister Morneau. In fact, making government more open and transparent is one of our government's priorities, not to mention our Prime Minister's.
[English]
It is one of the six priorities, for instance, in our RPP. You will see there are six priorities in that report: Open and Transparent Government; Better Service for Canadians; Better Oversight, Information and Reporting to Parliament; Aligning Resources for Results; the creation of the workforce of the future, with particular focus on the demographic challenges the public service faces and the opportunity we have to attract millennials to public service; and an Open, Agile and Collaborative Secretariat. These are parts of our RPP which again reflect the mandate letter that I received from the Prime Minister.
The specifics you refer to is part of this. The broader question of better alignment of the budget and estimates process can really move the needle in a significant way on this.
Senator Marshall: I want to speak about bringing the budget and the estimates closer together. That is going to be a big project for a lot of people.
I was wondering, how much work has been done on it? Have you launched the project, or are you just thinking about it, or are you expecting to start it next year? Is there anything specific on the project at this point in time that you could share with us?
Mr. Brison: I'm going to ask Yaprak Baltacioglu, and probably Brian as well, to provide some of this.
Our intention is to engage Parliament on a lot of the foundational work in terms of some of the specific ideas we want to move forward on. Part of the objective here is to benefit from the collective wisdom of parliamentarians as well and to provide some of the ideas there.
We have some specific ideas that we are quite confident can make a difference. We have had good discussions with Finance and our department. They are working closely together. There has been some dialogue with the Australian officials, as an example, that I have referenced. The C.D. Howe Institute has done some good work on this as well.
If you're thinking of some timelines beyond that, the first thing is we want to do is engage Parliament and identify and put forward some ideas. As to how quickly we could move forward, this is a question I ask quite frequently in our department. I will put our officials on the spot here so we can share with you their responses.
Ms. Baltacioglu: It is going be dependent on where Parliament is and how fast we can make changes to the standing orders. If we're successful, we will have quite a big step for next year, but it will depend on whether everybody is ready. We want to do this in a respectful fashion because this is a non-partisan issue that all parliamentarians should be interested in.
To get them to perfection in the way that our minister is talking about, to have all the results clear, measurements clear, budget and estimates aligning so that most of it is in the estimates, that will probably take a couple of years, but we're hoping that it will be in our lifetime.
Senator Marshall: I was thinking maybe seven or eight years down the road. When I think about it, it's almost overwhelming. It's such a big project.
Would you anticipate doing all of government at the one time, or would it be certain departments? You have singled Transport out as a test for the grants and contributions. Would you see this being a similar thing, or were you going to do everybody at the same time? I'm just trying to think ahead.
Ms. Baltacioglu: I think that overall, for budgets and estimates alignment, you have to do government as a whole. At least you have to aim for it. So the supplementary estimates should get smaller and smaller.
It is quite daunting, but it's not as bad as we think it is. It just needs to resolve an agreement from all parties involved.
In the public service, we are aligned. In our political leadership — the ministers and the Prime Minister — we are aligned. If Parliament aligns to that, then it's actually an issue of implementation.
For example, for this year you haven't seen yet, we worked very closely with Finance in terms of the budget initiatives. We are now putting them through Treasury Board, so we believe that the next set of estimates are going to actually reflect quite a large portion of what was in the budget.
Senator Marshall: That would be Supplementary Estimates (A).
Ms. Baltacioglu: Yes. But it's a short time frame.
In the old way, the proposals would not have been worked parallel. It takes a while to design these programs.
We're working pretty closely, and that actually would make the supplementary estimates to be larger supplementary estimates and, hopefully, more reflective of what was in the budget so that people can actually remember there was a budget and then the estimates. So it will be short time frame.
In our view, if there is a will, there is a way. We're very committed. Not everything is going to be great. It will probably take eight years to have everything aligned, but that doesn't mean that the majority cannot be aligned.
Senator Marshall: Thinking about the budget and looking at the estimates, I'm expecting Supplementary Estimates (A)s to be fairly big.
Ms. Baltacioglu: So are we.
Senator Marshall: Then there are some other issues that might filter out probably in Supplementary Estimates (B)s or (C)s, such as the Supreme Court decision a few days ago on the Metis. I heard the Minister of Health talking about the Health Accord. I heard Minister MacAulay talking about the dairy farmers with CETA. I'm expecting the (A)s to be big, and I'm expecting the (B)s and the (C)s to be big also.
When you do the project for the estimates, do you foresee tying it in some way with the public accounts? I'll tell you why I ask that. There might be logic in it already, but I haven't seen it. We had three organizations appear before us this morning. They were in the estimates book. I wanted to see their actual results. I went to the public accounts, but it's not in the public accounts. It's online, but it's not in the public accounts. I don't know if there is logic there that I'm missing or if we need to implement logic in lining up the public accounts with the estimates.
I'm very much looking forward to that project. I'm anxious to know the launch date and all the details.
Brian Pagan, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat: As both Yaprak and the minister have said, it's an ongoing project. It will take some time, but technically, we have launched the process. There was the information session to parliamentarians on February 1. We had 78 MPs and senators in attendance. The idea was that before talking about changing the system, we had to educate parliamentarians about how the system currently works. This is a new Parliament. They were hearing things for the first time: Main Estimates, supplementary estimates, public accounts. We wanted to get everybody on that common understanding. Then we rolled out the documents in sequence: Main Estimates, then the budget and Sups A coming. That will make clear to everyone just how out of sequence the process is.
The minister was at the House of Commons committee today and engaged them on that. This is not a TB policy issue; this is a House of Commons rules issue. As the secretary says, it's a non-partisan issue. We think that all MPs are interested in making this process more coherent.
Now, in respect of what it encompasses, it is multifaceted. We have heard at different times questions about cash versus accrual, vote versus program, annual versus multiyear. These are all important and very valid issues. In our view, we can understand them better if we actually get the timing right. If we can put the estimates after the budget, then some of this will become less of a thought.
We're going to approach this in stages. If we want to get the sequence right, we'll approach things in the proper sequence. There is both a platform and a mandate commitment that the minister has to ensure maximum alignment of the budget, the public accounts and the estimates. As we move forward, we will be working to make sure that these documents are internally consistent.
Mr. Brison: A point on this, Senator Marshall and all senators: Yaprak said it will take maybe eight years to get it perfect. We're not going to let perfection be the enemy of the good as we move forward.
One of the things our government wants to encourage in the public service and at the political level is intelligent risk taking. We know that if we're going to make changes, there are going to be things that we do that we find out, for instance, that didn't go as well. For instance, in Australia, on the issue of accrual versus cash accounting, they tried some new things there. They didn't work out. It ended up that they changed them. For instance, you mentioned the Transport pilot. That's an example of intelligent change that we can try and see how it works out.
The decision we made in December to go to Committee of the Whole as opposed to Governor General's warrants in order to get the resources we needed was a departure. It was one that was the right one.
The closer alignment happening right now between Finance and Treasury Board is resulting in funds that can go through the processes of Treasury Board and Finance concurrently and flow more quickly without compromising the governance. These are all things we're doing now.
But the part that we want to deepen is the engagement of Parliament, for whom this is extremely important in terms of the role that parliamentarians have, which, I think, has atrophied. The question was asked earlier about over what period has this happened in and why it happened the way it did, and I couldn't answer it. But I know that it has atrophied from a time when the responsibility of Parliament over the purse strings of government was considered the paramount responsibility. That's the wheelhouse of Parliament.
Senator Marshall: I always say that we try to reach utopia. We will never get there, but we still have to work towards it.
Mr. Brison: To do that, you've got to go to Newfoundland.
The Chair: You mentioned the Australian model and, I believe, Quebec. Where have you been able to get the most information? Have you taken bits and pieces from a variety of people, or do you have a model you are trying to adhere to that is going to form the basis of your program?
Mr. Brison: Brian just gave me this document that you can print off from the C.D. Howe Institute, Controlling the Public Purse: The Fiscal Accountability of Canada's Senior Governments. Ontario, Quebec and B.C. are examples within Canada. Australia has done a lot as a national government that we think is commendable and makes sense.
Mr. Lukiwski, the chair of the house committee, indicated earlier today that he would be interested in the committee potentially doing some travels on this and engaging officials and parliamentarians on this. That can be done in person or in teleconference, et cetera. We have done some work as well. I think Senators Marshall and Smith may have that document from when we met before, but we can provide that to the whole committee in terms of some of the background and some of the specific examples.
The funny thing about it is that you say it sounds complicated. Actually, what we are talking about makes so much more sense than the way we're doing it now, and it's much simpler to explain what we're going to do than it is to explain what we're doing, which is a good sign.
Senator Marshall: It's what we're going to do is more logical.
Mr. Brison: Usually when you explain what you're going to do, that's more difficult than what you're doing now. This is exactly the opposite because what we're doing now is so nuts that simplifying it and making it easier to understand just makes so much sense.
The Chair: Can we ask the question about the roll out? How many departments are you talking about? How many departments are there in the government?
Mr. Pagan: There are 131 or 132 appropriation-dependent organizations in the estimates.
The Chair: What are we talking about in terms of the implementation and implementation time? You said it could take up to eight years. I know you're being facetious.
Mr. Brison: No, she is being prudent.
The Chair: Right.
Mr. Brison: It's ministers who are —.
The Chair: She has conservative blood in her, I guess. How do you roll it out? In most situations, when you get into big corporations, and is this is a huge corporation we're talking about, you run things in a parallel basis until you have enough testing to give you a degree of comfort and confidence that you're going to be able to go live.
Could you give us some background? We had the Transport department in and we asked them some questions. We didn't have necessarily the right people there in terms of seniority who could go above just Finance. It's not a criticism. It's what it is. The fact of the matter is we got the sense that it was at very infant stages and maybe we did have the wrong people.
As an example, what are you going to roll out? You are going to have to have more than one guinea pig. You will probably have multiple guinea pigs so you can get a flow going, and then you can run some parallels and do your verifications so that at a certain time you can pull a switch. Is that thinking incorrect?
Mr. Brison: I want to ask Yaprak and Brian. There are some things on this. For instance, the timing of the budget and estimates process, it's hard to do ad hoc. That's something where we believe that working principally with Finance, we can move forward with that.
When people try to point out the risks, it's not obvious to me that the risks are huge. I don't see the risk of moving reasonably quickly with that across government departments and agencies with Finance and Treasury Board working in lockstep. They are doing so now. I would like to ask Yaprak or Brian if they have any comments.
Ms. Baltacioglu: There are a number of things that are going to be done. Number one is the timing of when the Main Estimates come in and when the budgets come in. Budgets will come when budgets come. But for the Main Estimates, there is a requirement to table it by a certain day, which jams us. We have an obligation to table in the House of Commons, and then the budget comes later.
Once that order is changed, it allows us to table Main Estimates post-budget. It automatically allows us to align what is in the budget and whether we can reflect what is in the estimates. Depending on how fast we can get Parliament to look at its orders and allow us to change the timing of the tabling of the estimates, that has to come in across the government. We can't do it one department at a time; it would be complete confusion.
What is in the Main Estimates is the next step. That is probably going to take longer. For example, you have asked about Transport. It's these program-based votes. That one will probably have to bring departments as they become ready because it's a redesign of their systems and reporting, and that's why we're doing the Transport pilot. Those departments would come online.
What the minister talked about is the departments being very clear about what results they're trying to achieve, what their plans are and what results they achieved in a year. That would require the redesign of their business. What business are we in? I'm cutting cheques. I'm doing services. I'm doing whatever; it depends on the department. Then they have to articulate what they're going to achieve as results, what they're planning to do. For those things, probably certain departments would be ready faster, but I'm not envisaging years and years. Perfection probably will be longer. I would say that, within the next year to two years, we will see the timing alignment.
Within the same time frame and maybe a year or so more, you will see the results framework outlined. The government is very determined on the results articulation because they see this as directly part of the transparency and open government. It's really hard to be open if you can't articulate what your business is and what you're trying to do with the taxpayer's money. That is going to need some work, but it actually brings the whole picture together.
When I said eight years, I was talking about all of the pieces and all parliamentarians understand all of the pieces. What we're hoping is that, in the next couple of years, we will make a tremendous amount of progress.
Mr. Brison: I'm going to ask Brian to speak as well, but I would add to that. We have an opportunity, with any new program or new investment that we're making, for instance, to the flow of new program funding, to do that as we actually implement. Treasury Board works closely with departments and agencies through the Treasury Board submission. We have an opportunity to take a more results focus on that, but then, through a rotating basis, we have an opportunity to do it through all the stock of government spending through departments and agencies.
The second part is really a huge part of it, and it will take longer. But in terms of the new initiatives that we're pursuing as a government — and we are a progressive government with an ambitious agenda — we want that to be very results-focused from the beginning, such that we can tell Canadians, "This was the objective of this investment or this initiative, and this is what was achieved as a result of this.''
Mr. Pagan: I won't belabour that point; I think it has been well said. We are adopting a pilot with Transport now to have a purpose for their programming, and, moving forward, we want to work with other departments to clarify their purpose and their results and then have an iterative process of allocating resources according to that purpose. That may take some time.
What I don't believe will take a great deal of time and what I believe is of very little risk to departments or to Parliament is the idea of timing and having the estimates after the budget. Arguably, the risk to departments and to parliamentarians is with our current status quo, and there are any number of examples where, because the estimates present a view at a point in time of the authorities available to a department, if those authorities have not been renewed in the budget, then those authorities end. So a department is presenting to Parliament a situation where they pretend that the programming won't happen or that they don't know if the programming is going to happen, and they can't organize themselves to deliver those programs and services.
We saw that last year in the 2015-16 Main Estimates with the example of Marine Atlantic. This is something that the secretary and I know well. We were at committee, and we were assaulted because it appeared as if there had been a reduction to Marine Atlantic. In fact, it was simply a question of timing. The confirmation of that funding was coming in the budget. What appeared as a cut in the Main Estimates was all of a sudden a big increase in Supplementary Estimates (A). In that sense, the risk is with the status quo. If we can get the timing of the documents right, we're presenting more fulsome, more complete, more comprehensive information.
In terms of departments, we work with them. It's a multi-month process to develop the estimates, and, to table the estimates currently, in February or by March 1, we start working with departments intensively in the late summer, early fall. If we were to table the estimates at a date after the budget, we would simply shift that start date a little to the right, but there would be no change in terms of the requirements expected of them.
The Chair: So, theoretically, you could have your budget. You could then possibly miss your Sup (A) because you have enough in your budget to cover you until Sup (B)?
Mr. Pagan: Correct.
The Chair: In fact, maybe you're going to have situations where you have departments with higher levels of statutory spending that are part of the ongoing regular operations, and your biggest adjustments are going to be in the departments that have a much higher percentage of voted; right?
Mr. Pagan: That's it.
The Chair: I'm just trying to think of timing.
Mr. Pagan: There was a question earlier about whether better alignment would reduce or eliminate the need for supplementary estimates. I think we can say with some certainty that, if we had the Main Estimates after the budget, we would not need a Supplementary Estimates (A) because the Main Estimates would be in place.
The Chair: Because you would be covered by the initial budget.
Mr. Pagan: Yes.
The Chair: One of the things from a Finance Committee perspective of some of the folks, including myself, is that, when you come in, you hear words such as lapsed, frozen allotments, sunsetting — sunsetting is fairly easy to understand — reprofiling. There are some things over time where, even for business people that have run major organizations, the terminology that we have been subjected to takes a little while to get used to. This is why, with Mr. Pagan coming in, it's so helpful to have someone with the patience that he has because we've had to go through that cycle. If you've been on the committee for three or four years, you've had the cycle explained to you for four years in a row, but it's really helpful because, at a point in time, you start to actually understand the way things work. It's the terminology. In Defence, it was profiling. Then, all of a sudden, a contract comes up for buying ships, and the ships are delayed because it's going to take four years, et cetera.
Hopefully the terminology could be cleared up because, with the new way of doing budgeting and the estimates, maybe we're not going to have as many of these floating terms that are catch phrases for how you're playing with the money. Is that accurate, Mr. Pagan?
Mr. Brison: May I, Mr. Chair? You just said something that basically is exactly what I said last Friday when we were having a discussion with public servants in our department, officials, about this. We were looking through a draft opening statement. It took me 10 years to learn to speak French, and I still struggle. This language is almost more difficult in some ways.
The idea, as parliamentarians, is that you take your work very seriously at this committee, and you work really hard to learn these terms. Then, ultimately, you learn them, and you can understand. But the problem is, out there, broadly, for Canadians, when they hear us speak about these things, we're speaking a different language.
The degree to which we speak in language that Canadians understand will help parliamentarians understand, but it will help Canadians and Parliament hold governments to account because a lot of this can be communicated.
Brian is a great resource. I drive him crazy all the time on this stuff. He's a great resource on this sort of thing. You've discovered that at this committee. I don't want to render Brian redundant or anything like that. He's working to help us all simplify this. I'm not suggesting you're working yourself out of a job, Brian. You don't need to get a little nervous. We won't need a translator. We won't need "Brian the translator,'' as we could put it.
Another example here: You mentioned, in terms of budget and the Main Estimates, that Transport, for instance, shows a $349 million decrease in contributions for the gateway and border crossings. The reality is that we're investing, over the next five years, 3.4 billion in federal infrastructure, much of which will be in Transport, so the idea of Main Estimates coming out and then a budget coming out basically with completely different messages or priorities is really hard to make sense of for any of us, let alone Canadians.
Brian, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Pagan: No, I think you've said it very well.
Mr. Brison: The idea is I don't want people like Brian to have to be effectively translators of this sort of gobbledygook language. I want us to actually be working on our jobs of developing metrics and measuring results for government to deliver better services for Canadians and better value for taxpayers. That's what we ought to be focused on as government, and that's what Parliament ought to be holding us to account on. I don't know how it happened. I don't know how we got here, but I know there is a way forward where we can actually get to a better place on this.
The Chair: Regarding relationships with provinces, you mentioned B.C., Ontario and Quebec. What ongoing activities do you have with them with regard to your project, or do you? You were talking about maybe going out meeting people. This is a subject where maybe our Finance Committee here could be of assistance to you with some little portion of your work. I'm not trying to create more work for us because we already have two major studies that we're going to look at with infrastructure and with the aging population, but you had mentioned relationships with some of these provinces. Are you actively involved with one or two? Do you have key players that you're dealing with? Could you give us a little overview? We're not trying to get confidential information.
Mr. Brison: I have had discussions with my counterpart in Ontario, and I mentioned Australia. At the officials' level, there has been quite a bit of discussion. To be honest, I know you're looking at some other areas of important studies. I think this is a really important one, and I'd urge you to engage on this subject too. If we get this right, everything else we do will be more effective as a Parliament.
Ms. Baltacioglu: Brian will talk about his work with colleagues in the provinces. We actually asked the former Secretary to the Treasury of Australia to come over last year when we were preparing our transition advice. He came and talked to a number of senior officials, deputy ministers, and he explained how it works there.
As well, we have the former Secretary of Finance as part of our advisory group that we put in place. He actively participates in an advisory group to me. He comes and gives us the challenge function. If he's amenable and if the minister is open, maybe we can hold a small meeting when he next comes to town so we can capitalize on that.
The Chair: That would be fascinating.
Ms. Baltacioglu: He can give you a sense of what happens, how the papers work and what parliamentarians do. I'm sure that he would be more than happy. I think our next meeting is in the summer. I will get back to the committee clerk.
The Chair: That would be helpful.
Mr. Pagan: To add to that, there are two dimensions to our comparative analysis. Internationally, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, convenes a regular meeting of senior budget officials where they share practices and try to identify emerging best practices related to cash versus accrual, performance reviews, results-based budgeting and the nature of parliamentary control. Canada has been an active participant in that process, trying to leverage learning and what's working, including from Australia. Australia is also there.
Nationally, there is a working group of federal-provincial officials at my level that meets every summer. Again, we share practices on budget development, reporting and results. This rotates by province, and this coming year it will be hosted by Quebec, in Quebec City. Again, we'll be engaging with some of the provinces that we have mentioned here that are already very active in this area to develop better information products and better processes.
The Chair: Would you be able to give us a one-pager on a couple of those points you just mentioned so that we can educate ourselves a bit better in terms of not trying to hook onto the wagon but getting a bit closer? Just try to imagine what we've exchanged in terms of some of the conceptions and learnings that we've gone through.
If you look at senators who sit on two or three committees, usually they have one committee that is their bread and butter committee, and then the next two they're on the committees. To be totally involved, however, you have to do a lot of work.
When we look at the financial system that runs government, unless you're on this committee or you're a CA, chances are you're going to be a long distance from understanding how things work. If there is any way that we can assist you without blowing ourselves up, we'd love to be able to help and to be able to learn so that we can be conduits. I think you will need disciples along the way. You can look at somebody in the eye and you see that their eyes are bright on a subject and you know you can relate to them, and you're going to need more of them. You will need messengers out there to get that across internally. Once it gets through internally, then people can talk to their constituents and people will start to understand that it's a hell of a process.
Are there other questions or comments?
Senator Bellemare: I have a question about open government. To what limit can an open government go?
My next question is in relation to infrastructure. We will be doing a study on that, and the government will have a lot of investment in infrastructure in the coming years. Will those investments be agreed to by the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities? This $120 billion or so of funds is administered by the minister.
What's the link with the Treasury Board and the funds that are going to be invested everywhere in Canada? What's the link with open government? Would you be inclined to say that all the investments done by the provinces and by those who will receive the money to do the jobs should be disclosed? I want to get an idea to what extent you're willing to be open on contracts and so forth.
Mr. Brison: The answer is, yes, all of these infrastructure investments will be public. If you look at our budget and some of the very focused infrastructure investments, for instance in university research and some of the criteria around that, Treasury Board is working closely right now with the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and his team and with Finance. If you look at what Finance has said about infrastructure, there is a fair bit of detail about that. Treasury Board is there to ensure that, as the funds flow, in fact the funds flow to the type of infrastructure envisioned by the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister when they committed the funds as part of the budget. We are working very closely now with the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities and his team and Finance on that.
We want infrastructure to be very results-focused. When you're talking about "results-focused'' and trying to make a difference, there is $8.4 billion in commitments to indigenous people, indigenous communities. A large part of that is on infrastructure. Measuring the results from that investment is going to be something we view as being really important because we believe it could make a lot of difference on infrastructure.
Some of that money is going into education. I spoke with Paul Martin over the weekend about that. He's done quite a bit of work in this area and measuring results that we get. I know we're going from infrastructure to education. As a federal politician, it's not often that I have an opportunity to talk about investing in education; but in indigenous communities, it's one area where we do work in partnership and have a responsibility. These are areas where we want to demonstrate results, to measure results and to see results.
You asked about open and transparent government. I gave a speech recently to a conference about this. It's open information, open data and also open engagement. As a government, we don't view that 30-some people in a cabinet room have all of the answers. There is a lot of collective wisdom out there on a lot of things; and open engagement is part of that. The degree to which we share information with Canadians, the information we have, and then harness the collective wisdom of Canadians in problem solving. I think we can get better at identifying problems but also at building solutions to open government.
Open government is better government. Open government can provide better government and better results. The senator said, "Do you mind if we hitch onto your wagon?'' We actually want you to and we'll give you the information we have with hopes that your collective experience on this committee will help us to move forward. We're all pulling in the same direction, so that's a good thing.
Senator Mockler: I agree with transparency and that we're being progressive in moving forward. Minister, you had a few comments on a pilot project. Could you explain what that pilot project was? In your statement, you said you were looking at pilot projects.
After that, I want to ask the officials about vote 30 of the Main Estimates. What is that project and where will it be?
Mr. Brison: Under Transport Canada, we broke down expenditures based on project or program more specifically than we had in the past: for instance, Grants and Contributions for Gateways and Corridors; Grants and Contributions for Transport and Infrastructure; and Grants and Contributions for other. That's more granular in terms of information than we've provided in the past. It creates inherently more accountability. It's one step, and we're trying it at Transport.
Mr. Pagan: Senator, just to be clear, in the past, Transport Canada had a single vote for their grants and contribution programming. Within that single vote, if you have the estimates document in front of you, you'll see a listing of some 20 or 25 different grants and contributions. The department was free to move money between grants and contributions within that vote.
With this pilot now, there is more control, if you will, by having a specific vote for each purpose. As the minister was saying, the Gateways and Corridors Grants and Contributions is managed now within a single, purpose-based vote. For Transportation Infrastructure, all of the supporting grants and contributions are now in a single vote. The department cannot move money from their Transportation Infrastructure vote to their Gateways and Corridors vote without coming back to Parliament to tell them why they're doing it and to get approval for it.
We're testing this. It gives you more information and provides some restrictions in terms of how the department can manage that. We believe there is an appropriate trade-off between flexibility and information and transparency. We'll be engaging departments to see if it works on their part and then ideally expanding it for other purposes.
Mr. Brison: To put a little colour on this as to why this is important, it will prevent a government — and I'm not saying this would ever happen — for example from taking money from a border infrastructure fund to build a gazebo in Muskoka. I'm just using that not as a complete hypothetical, but you will understand. The previous approach would enable some government to potentially do that.
Senator Mockler: The minister has a selective memory.
The Chair: Was the gazebo in New Brunswick?
Mr. Brison: If I may intervene, I've known Percy for a long time, since he was a minister in New Brunswick. One of the things that sometimes we don't realize in Ottawa is that some provincial governments are actually doing some things really well. At the time, Percy was Minister responsible for Service New Brunswick. It was one of the best shared services models for the whole country. It was an example of excellence in terms of enterprise-wide solutions coming from the Province of New Brunswick. He was proud of it then as minister, and I remember working with him when I was Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada a long time ago.
Senator Mockler: Mr. Chair, may I pose my other question?
The Chair: Please go ahead.
Senator Mockler: When you talk about your metrics and measuring results, that's moving forward.
At vote 30, the organization forecast, there's a decrease of $400 million for 2016-17. That's following the near completion of payouts for the elimination of accumulated severance for public servants. It's a great concern, and there is a lot of talk about it. What is the total cost of payouts for the elimination of accumulated severance for public servants? What are the estimated savings from the elimination of the accumulated severance? How many public servants chose to defer the payment associated with the elimination of accumulated severance? What is the government's remaining liability? If you don't have the shared information now, could you please bring it to the attention of the clerk at a later time?
Mr. Brison: Sure. Thank you, Percy. We will get you that information. My understanding is that with this $400 million, we're almost complete in terms of the payout of public service employee severance liability. It's almost complete.
Renée LaFontaine, Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Services Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat: We'll get that information, but it will take a week or so.
Ms. Baltacioglu: It will take us a while.
Mr. Brison: We'll get back to you.
Senator Bellemare: I have a question about the job of the Treasury Board per se. You are responsible for negotiating with employees their benefits and so forth. You also negotiate their pension.
Ms. Baltacioglu: It's legislated.
Senator Bellemare: Okay. My question is related: The legislation has changed recently, and new employees have a capitalized pension plan. Public service employees have a fund that is capitalized. Before the law changed, it was pay- as-you-go. Since the law passed, it is now a funded regime. I thought you were managing the fund. Yes, you do. Do the employees participate in the management of the fund?
Mr. Brison: In terms of the contributions. But in terms of the management, in terms of employees' engagement in the management of it, I will defer that to —
Senator Bellemare: I was wondering if they participate —
Mr. Brison: It is a defined benefit plan, and there has been change over a period to the level of contribution to the plan. It is a well-managed plan. It's efficiently managed. There are a number of these plans in terms of public sector pensions that Treasury Board is engaged in. We have Crown corporations with pension plans as well. These are things we are seized with, but the broad public service pension plan is one that does fall under Treasury Board. To the question of to what extent the employees are engaged in the management, there is a management board for the investments.
Ms. Baltacioglu: In terms of the pension fund and how it is managed, we have an arm's-length organization. The name of this is the Public Service Pension Investment Board.
Senator Bellemare: Do employees sit on the board?
Ms. Baltacioglu: I don't think there are employee representatives on the board. It runs as any pension investment board. They invest the money. They have good returns and they have public reports around them. We do talk to the unions once a year, and we have not heard any complaints or issues around the management of the pension fund.
Senator Bellemare: Because the law now obliges the employees to contribute 50 per cent of the cost.
Ms. Baltacioglu: 50-50.
Senator Bellemare: I was wondering if this board was also doing the estimated cost, or the costing of the thing is something with the actuary?
Ms. Baltacioglu: We rely on the Chief Actuary. Once the money is there, this board makes sure that the government makes money on it. The Chief Actuary advises us in terms of what the rates are and the issues around it. Our approach to public service pensions was audited by the Auditor General, I believe last year, and he feels comfortable with the way this is being managed.
Senator Bellemare: So there's no deficit.
Ms. Baltacioglu: Renée is going to answer.
Ms. LaFontaine: I'm sorry; I don't have the numbers in front of me right now. But yes, we are managing down our deficit. You're right that there are two groups of employees. There are the employees that were members of the plan before 2011, and then after that, the regime change. There was a legislative change, and they have slightly different benefits. We keep track of those too.
Ms. Baltacioglu: It is 4.4.
Ms. LaFontaine: There you go. Our deficit now is $4.4 billion, but we're working that down.
Mr. Brison: One of the challenges we have and that we are looking at is — Senator Mitchell started off with the low-bond-yield environment that we have. That's an issue. We also have demographic issues around these things. We are dealing with these. We are going to deal with them in a transparent way. Obviously, as government, we need to. We're also in the process of considering the management. We do believe that the funds are being managed well and that the returns are reasonable, given the current environment.
The Chair: Senator Mitchell, do you have a question you wanted to ask?
Senator Mitchell: I do. I would say it's a technical question, but they have all been technical.
Mr. Brison: I'm informed that last year the return was 14.5 per cent. My stuff is in a blind trust now, so I don't know how I'm doing right now, but I think that's better than I did last year. I don't know now.
Senator Mitchell: One question on this, quickly. The $4.2 billion is on how big a pool?
Ms. LaFontaine: Sorry. Can we get back to you on that?
Senator Mitchell: Yes, if you wouldn't mind.
My other question is technical again, and it's on Bill C-7, the RCMP unionization bill. Your title appears on it, minister. However, was it Minister Goodale whose department doubled the substance of that bill, and you are there because ultimately you would administer it because it's public service? How did that work? Did you have substantive input?
Mr. Brison: It's in partnership. Treasury Board is the employer of RCMP. A lot of the consultations were done last summer. They were conducted by the RCMP. My understanding is that it was an extensive consultation.
As the government, we inherited the situation, a Supreme Court decision, that the current regime wasn't constitutional. Initially, we sought an extension to that, and we are working within that framework. The deadline is now May 16, if I recall. We're working through that with Parliament now, with the house and Senate. Our department is engaged, working closely with Minister Goodale. Our officials are working closely with Commissioner Paulson.
The main thing we want with this legislation is to comply with the Supreme Court requirement of providing RCMP with the collective bargaining rights. The legislation achieves that.
We have made it clear to the parliamentary committee — and I'll make it clear to the Senate committee as well — that we are open to discussions around amendments. Our principal focus here is to ensure that we respond to the Supreme Court decision and that we make the regime consistent with our Charter of Rights.
Are there any other questions on the legislation?
Senator Mitchell: Thank you very much. I am very encouraged to hear that you would consider amendments, because clearly the RCMP has — I'm not saying necessarily throughout it, but there is a cultural problem there, and harassment. The former minister agreed — and the commissioner himself agreed — that there is a problem with harassment. Yet harassment behaviour standards have apparently been excluded from the bill. It would seem that either there is another way to handle that or it should be included in the bill. That would be my first specific question.
My second specific question would be that I think the structure of the grievance process has been excluded from the collective bargaining process as well. Harassment is excluded from the collective bargaining process; the grievance process is excluded from the collective bargaining process. It would be very important, I would think, in order to solve the problems in the RCMP, that they should be in there, or certainly the grievance process has to be objective; and it can't be, I would argue, structured —
Senator Campbell: Point of order, chair. I find this all very interesting, but I have difficulty understanding what this has to do with the budget. I wish we could stay on what the budget is about instead of bills that we don't even have before us.
Senator Mitchell: The minister is responsible for it and it will cost money.
The Chair: If you could give a quick response.
Mr. Brison: I appreciate it very much, Senator Mitchell. We have had some of these discussions had already with the house committee. Minister Goodale and I have made it clear that if there are amendments that make sense — the principal focus of this is that we want to provide collective bargaining rights to RCMP and take the regime in order to respect the Supreme Court decision to make this consistent with our Charter. That's the principal objective. There are other issues that can be dealt with in other ways, but we're trying to keep the legislation focused on that response to the Supreme Court.
Again, we are open to parliamentary input on this, and any further information we can provide, Minister's Goodale's office or mine, we can do that.
The Chair: We're at the point now where we're starting to get some head-bobbing and fatigue setting in after a long day for many of the people in the room. Would you like to give us a one-minute summary in terms of where you see this program going in terms of the repositioning of how the finances of the government will be produced and distributed to parliamentarians? After such a summary, we'll call it a night.
Mr. Brison: Thank you, senator. I want to thank each of you for your time here tonight and for your interest in these subjects. There are some specific questions that we'll respond to, and we're also going to provide to you some of the work that my officials have done on the whole alignment of budget and estimates process.
As Yaprak said, this is very much Parliament. We are going to support and engage Parliament on this, but this is a process that ultimately requires parliamentary engagement. Within the Senate, there is a lot of expertise on these issues. We have also spoken with Robert Marleau, as well as a former Clerk of the House who has done a lot of thinking on this. Brian and I have had some discussions with former Senator Lowell Murray. We are very serious about this, and we know you are. I want to encourage you to reach out to me or to our officials as we move forward on this.
This is not a partisan process. This is about better government for Canadians — more open, transparent, accountable and effective government, with better results for Canadians. That is something that everyone in this room and throughout our Parliament broadly, in both chambers, is committed to. We're looking forward to working with you as partners in this as we move forward.
Again, thank you for the opportunity. We'll be delighted to come back anytime for further discussion.
The Chair: Thank you for your time, Mr. Minister, and the representatives with you. We look forward to continuing our relationship. Mr. Pagan, perhaps the next time we have our next visit from your department, you could give us a status update — or however you see fit to give us a little status updates. We don't expect it to be on a daily basis or monthly basis, but if you have a thought of the best way to keep us informed, that would be helpful. We can then disseminate that information to our members.
Mr. Brison: I was remiss: I want to thank my officials, Brian, Renée and Yaprak. I don't know if Canadians appreciate fully what a tremendously good public service we have. We really do have a very strong, professional public service. I'm biased because I believe Treasury Board has the crème de la crème of public servants. We have a great team, and I'm very proud to have been given the opportunity to be part of this team. I want to thank them for their time tonight and the amount of hard work they've put in. They are the workhorses; I'm the show horse, right? They do a lot of hard work on an ongoing basis. I know you appreciate it. Senate committees understand this, and I want to thank them for their work.
The Chair: Thank you very much, everyone.
(The committee adjourned.)