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It being 10:30, let's go ahead and have a start to this meeting. This part of the meeting is televised and in public.
We're here today pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 9, on a question of privilege from the finance committee.
We do have Mr. Walsh with us today, but I want to do a little bit of chair business before we get started.
As many of you know, we have three issues before this committee right now. We did just have an in camera session on one of the reports. We're not finished it yet, so we'll be back to it. We also have a motion of privilege from the finance committee. Then we have a motion of privilege pertaining to CIDA.
To the committee, it will take all of our full cooperation to get through the next two or three days. We have a full agenda. You've asked your chair and the clerk to work hard on putting together a witness list, and we've done so. We've filled your days, so it will take all of you....
The first order of business for the committee after the Speaker refers motions of privilege to us in the sense of prima facie--that on the surface there is a case, and it comes to this committee--is to determine if there's significant reason to move forward. That is one of the first jobs of this committee. We will ask some of those questions of Mr. Walsh.
Convention has been, of late, that the Speaker would be the first witness we would have. The Speaker was not available to attend this week to be our first witness and to talk to us about his determining of each of these rulings.
As your chair, I did take it upon myself to have a quick conversation with him last Thursday. He shared with me that certainly in the case of the finance committee, the ruling speaks for itself and we should move forward. On the motion of privilege from CIDA, I questioned him on the prima facie case there, as we may have done if we'd had him as a witness. He suggested that he wasn't sure it wasn't just a prima facie case, but that the committee would move forward on it also and make its own determining there.
This committee tends to work in a very congenial and friendly manner, and your chair takes those liberties in order to keep us there.
A voice: [Inaudible--Editor]
The Chair: I know; I'm disappointed from this morning, but no....
A voice: [Inaudible--Editor]
The Chair: I just said I was disappointed; I didn't say why.
It will take all of us...and in good time, and good help, with the witnesses. We'll stick to our usual practices here of doing two different rounds of questions and then trying to get those who haven't yet asked a question of the witness a chance to ask questions in the last little bits of each of the hours of witnesses.
Without the Speaker here to lead this study, we have asked Mr. Walsh to come forward.
Mr. Walsh, perhaps you could just help out your chair. I know you don't have an opening statement--I'll get to you in just a second, Mr. Paquette--but I'm just looking to you to perhaps help the chair out a little bit with the definition of “prima facie”. Then we'll move forward to questions.
Mr. Paquette, did you want to go before the witness?
I don't have an opening statement because it wasn't clear to me what specifically it was that I was being asked to address today. In the circumstances, I feared I would waste the committee's time going on a tangent that wasn't of interest to the committee.
Your question particularly relates to the status or the meaning of “prima facie” as a ruling by the Speaker. Well, prima facie is one of those nice Latin expressions that can be used for a variety of purposes. I suppose for a close translation, or a rough translation, in English we might say “at first blush”, on a reading through, do you see anything here that could, upon further examination, perhaps constitute a breach of privilege?
Don't forget, part of what's going on here with this practice is for the Speaker to rule out those points of privilege that may at first blush simply give no indication of any merit. So rather than take up the time of this committee or the House, he would not find prima facie.
But prima facie is not to be taken as conclusive of the question. It's simply saying “at first blush, it would appear”. This committee's job now is to examine the question in greater depth and to make a report to the House on whether, in its view, there is or is not a breach of privilege here.
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I think as the Speaker himself indicates in his report on this occasion and on the decision of last April pertaining to Afghan detainees, Parliament has the right to receive whatever information it requests from the government as part of its constitutional function of holding the government to account.
However, let's not forget, it's always open to the government to say, “No, you're not going to get it”, for whatever reason. And then it takes its chances with the House, because the House may not be happy with that, and it's up to the House to decide what it's going to do about that.
So I'm not saying that the government can never say no. I'm just saying that if they say no, the onus is on them to justify why they're saying no, because the basic principle is that the House should receive whatever information it seeks for it to do its function in holding the government to account or, as you mentioned, in reviewing legislation.
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It is difficult, obviously. You can't say you can't tell someone what it is or you get into that situation we laugh about: “I can tell you what it is, but then I'm going to have to shoot you.”
There's a trust element, and the legislation, in section 39, makes it clear that Parliament is saying that if the Clerk of the Privy Council so certifies, that's the end of the matter and the court cannot examine it. There are other sections of the Canada Evidence Act dealing with national security and national defence, and the courts have developed a practice of actually looking at what this sensitive or injurious information is that the government is trying to keep out of the proceedings. This occurs typically in terrorist trials or something like that. The court satisfies itself that it really is something of national security and not just something that may embarrass the government. But there's no opportunity for the court to do that under section 39, and once it's certified by the Clerk of the Privy Council, it's beyond the reach of the court.
But the House of Commons is not a court of law and the House of Commons is not subject to section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act. The certification of something as a cabinet confidence does not, in my view, trump parliamentary privilege or the right of the House to receive information from the government and to hold the government to account.
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Who has that power? Well, no one, specifically, because as soon as the Clerk of the Privy Council determines that this or that document is confidential, it's all over from a judicial standpoint, given what is provided for under section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act.
However, as far as parliamentary affairs are concerned, it's completely different: it is up to you to decide. We are aware of the nature of these documents; they deal with financial issues, I believe, and the costs associated with bills that deal with prisons. You could say that a member of Parliament decided that some things are Cabinet confidences. However, as Mr. Brison stated earlier, you may be able to argue that what was discussed before a bill was introduced in Parliament does in fact constitute a Cabinet confidence. I imagine the issue was discussed and that it is a confidence.
However, as soon as a bill dealing with that specific subject is introduced, logically, members of Parliament will be asking to have access to all the information in support of that initiative. It is up to members of Parliament to decide whether they have received all the information or not. In fact, members of Parliament could decide not to support the bill. Discussions in committee might prompt members of Parliament to vote against the bill, rather than simply seeking to censure the government for contempt of Parliament. You have the option of voting against the bill.
Thank you very much, Mr. Walsh, for being here today.
I just want to put a few things to you and get your response, if I could.
A lot of Canadians are watching this. They're a little confused about what this is all about. It seems to be very procedural. I want to remind folks who might be watching, listening, or reading just what's happening here. Maybe you can help us communicate this to working Canadians.
First of all, our research, provided by the Library of Parliament, tells us--the top researchers there have told all parliamentarians, and all Canadians, for that matter--that this question of finding a government potentially in contempt really has never happened before in Canadian history. Is that right?
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I know the opposition members are waiting with bated breath for those comments.
Mr. Walsh, thank you for being here. I want to go back to something you said before, which is very, very true, which is that it is the committee's responsibility to determine whether or not privilege has been breached.
It would appear to me that the germane questions to be asked are very simple. They are questions for the ministers who will be appearing before us later today in that they supplied information, the government supplied information, to Parliament, and the Speaker felt the information was not sufficient. It would appear to me that the questions would be best put to the ministers to get their explanation as to why the information they supplied was, in their view, sufficient.
The troubling part is before we've even heard testimony from the ministers, I read in media reports, particularly the Hill Times, that Mr. Proulx has been suggesting that the opposition, at least from the Liberal perspective, may be going down a track to finding contempt in the government on this issue before any testimony has been given. I don't know if you have a comment on that.
We've talked about the tyranny of the majority, but it would appear to me that if that is an attitudinal approach of opposition members, and you mentioned before if the opposition is united in their opposition to the government—which is a nice way of saying coalition—really, these committees serve no useful purpose. The testimony serves no useful purpose.
If the united opposition is predisposed before coming to committee that they will find a ruling of contempt or make a motion of contempt on the government, what are we doing here?
Good morning, everyone.
Mr. Chair, I do not have prepared speaking notes for the committee this morning, but what we have now distributed to the members is actually a detailed backgrounder in terms of how cabinet confidences are considered by my office, and some of the relevant case law in relation to cabinet confidences and certification of cabinet confidences by the Clerk of the Privy Council.
With me today I have Andrea Neill, who is the assistant commissioner. She's responsible for investigations. She's here because if any of the members have questions in terms of how we look at cabinet confidences, when an institution claims that there's a cabinet confidence inclusion that applies to specific documents, Andrea is responsible for the investigative process and she can walk us through that.
Emily McCarthy is my new general counsel. I'm very pleased to have her as a recent addition to the office. Also, Emily can answer more specific questions about the relevant case law I'll alert the committee members to.
[Translation]
I think it's important to mention right at the outset that the entire parliamentary process, and all the discussions that occur in Parliament regarding requests for information made to the government, are really part of a separate and distinct process from the one we use for access to information. It is important that this be well understood.
That said, before coming here today, I re-read the debates that took place in the House of Commons with respect to this matter, and I am here to give you some ideas as to the rationale we ask the government to provide when it invokes Cabinet secrecy, how that works and how this is interpreted in the caselaw. You may find some interesting parallels that could apply to your own discussions and subsequent proceedings.
I would also like to mention that it would be completely inappropriate for me, in my current role, to make a specific determination regarding a specific request. We conduct our inquiries independently and in private, and I have to secure all the documents and review all the representations from the parties before taking a position.
[English]
It's very important to understand that I cannot and will not comment on a specific request for information without having gone through the process the legislation asks me to do, which is to conduct a fair and thorough investigation, review all the documents, get all the representations from the parties, and then make recommendations based on findings.
One thing people have questions about is what is a cabinet confidence. It's a very good question.
A description of cabinet confidence can be found in section 69 of the Access to Information Act. Certain documents are listed there as being cabinet confidences; however, the list is not exhaustive. There's a similar provision in section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act, which has a similar list of documents. However, the section 39 process in the Canada Evidence Act requires the Clerk of the Privy Council or a minister of the crown to issue a certificate certifying that these are cabinet confidences. We'll talk a bit about the case law that surrounds that. Ultimately, by way of policy, it is really the Privy Council Office that decides what is a cabinet confidence.
There are a couple of cases that I think are really relevant to the discussion around what is a cabinet confidence and how one ensures it's a cabinet confidence. There is the case of Babcock v. Canada, which was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada. Everything I'm talking about is actually in the paper. In that case the Supreme Court of Canada decided that it has the right to review the decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council to issue a certificate and it lists the criteria that must be looked at to determine whether the certificate was validly issued under the circumstances.
One of the things the court said is that this means the clerk or the minister must provide a description of the information sufficient to establish on its face that the information is a cabinet confidence and that it falls within the categories of subsection 39(2) or an analogous category. Those categories are the same as the ones in the Access to Information Act under section 69. It goes on to say that the kind of description that's required for claims of solicitor-client privilege under the civil rules of court will generally suffice, i.e., the date, the title, the author, and the recipient of the document containing the information should normally be disclosed.
This gives the framework under which we conduct our investigations regarding cabinet confidences. If an institution claims cabinet confidence, the way we conduct our investigation is we seek all the records. The institution will then say that the records are not covered and cannot be disclosed because they're covered by cabinet confidence. Then it will issue a schedule listing all of these details. It's reviewed by the Privy Council Office. Our investigation consists of reviewing the schedule and ensuring that we are satisfied the test that was mentioned in Babcock has been met.
I gave you the statistics, but it's important to understand that in our investigations in the last five years, even though we don't have the right to see the actual documents, on average, in 24% of the cases we investigated, we found that the case had merit, i.e., they were documents where cabinet confidences were claimed and they were not met.
If you look at the table of statistics in the documents, it's important to understand it is a small percentage of our complaints. We're dealing with small numbers, but nonetheless, I think it's instructive to understand what the situation is vis-à-vis our investigations.
With that, Mr. Chair, and given that I have given the committee all the background information, I'll leave it at that.
The only thing I can offer to this committee is a parallel in terms of the process that we follow in order to determine, with government institutions, whether a matter is a cabinet confidence and the justifications that we require of the Privy Council Office in conducting our investigations.
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It's very clear in the Act: my primary mandate is really to carry out investigations when I receive complaints about the handling of access to information requests by federal institutions covered under the legislation. We receive approximately 1,800 complaints each year in the last two years, and possibly more over the last five years. The legislation requires that I investigate. So, I have no discretion, in that the Act is very clear: when I receive a complaint about an institution covered under the legislation, I have to investigate.
[English]
I must, I shall, investigate.
[Translation]
The law says I have to do it.
Second of all, I also have the option of carrying out my own investigations. To be perfectly honest, I very rarely do it because we still have some 1,900 active files in our inventory. Because we also receive approximately 1,800 per year, I really focus on the complaints we receive. However, I have conducted several investigations in relation to complaints since becoming acting, and then permanent, Commissioner. I did do a number of investigations. I don't have the exact number with me, but I would be pleased to share that information with you.
And thank you, Madame Legault and your team, for being here today.
I just wanted to draw to the attention of members the paper you circulated regarding your role and jurisdiction. Clearly, on page 1, it states, “The mandate of the Information Commissioner--to receive and investigate complaints--is prescribed in sections 30 through 37 of the Access to Information Act”. And then you highlight that again in your concluding statement, where you point out that “The Information Commissioner's jurisdiction extends only to cases where a complaint has been brought pursuant to the Access to Information Act.”
My question relates to the total impact of access to information requests that our government deals with across the government, in addition to crown corporations, and so on.
Could you compare for our committee a rough estimate as to the total number of access to information requests that have been handled perhaps in the last two years, 2009 to 2010, and compare it to 1999 to 2000, somewhere in there?
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First of all, the collection of statistics and doing any comparative analysis in terms of the volume of requests across the government is the responsibility of the Treasury Board Secretariat. My office does not collect statistics. We don't have those resources, nor is it our mandate.
That being said—and I don't have them with me—I know that this past year the statistics are about 35,000, in terms of access to information requests. That has been growing fairly steadily, about 5% or 6%, year over year. As I said, I don't have those here, but they are publicly available and I can get them for the committee, no problem.
In terms of complaints by crown corporations or the new institutions, it's a fairly small number. In fact, it's somewhat statistically irrelevant. It's about 2% to 3% in terms of requests. In terms of complaints to my office, it is no longer statistically irrelevant because it varied from about 12% to 14%. It's in my special report that I issued this year. So there are high levels of complaints for new institutions.
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First of all, I'd like to say that this question is probably not being asked to the right person--
Mr. Harold Albrecht: Okay.
Ms. Suzanne Legault: --in the sense that I believe that access to information is essential for Canadian democracy and to hold governments accountable. We don't question how much it costs to issue pension cheques to citizens because we consider that a normal service that we provide to our citizens. I also believe that the information produced by government is public sector information, which taxpayers already pay the government to produce.
That aside, as far as I remember--and that's from last year--Treasury Board actually does calculate the cost of processing an access request. It's about $1,400 per request--from last year. In terms of how many resources there are in each institution, I really could not answer that. That would be for Treasury Board Secretariat.
That said, when we have a system that actually has a lot of inefficiencies, in my view, if we were addressing those, we would reduce costs. If we had institutions where we were really processing access requests within the spirit of the act, which is in favour of disclosure as opposed to applying exemptions, we would save a lot of costs within my office in terms of dealing with complaints.
Canada Post is a good example. In my report cards this year, they have sufficient resources, a low volume of pages, a low volume of requests, and one of the worst records we've seen in the history of report cards. So it has nothing to do with resources, money, persons, or volume of requests. It's a question of leadership.
So when we assign a cost in the system the way it is functioning now, I think I would rather see improvements to the system and then an assessment of costs. I think that would be the best way to do it, particularly since a lot of the cost is generated by searching through large volumes of records, and that has to do with catching up in terms of electronic records management in the government. The government is moving that way, but once we are better at that, we will reduce costs.
By the way, the last thing I have to say is $5 cheques, when it probably costs more money to the government to process them...? You know, we can save money in access to information, for sure.
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First of all, that is why I am advocating that I should be authorized to review them. It's an area for legislative reform, but the situation is now such that the Babcock ruling is part of the caselaw. There is also the ruling in the Ethyl case.
The court gave details as to the information the government must provide when the Privy Council certifies that something is a Cabinet confidence. We proceed in that manner in our own investigations—in other words, we base ourselves on what the Supreme Court said in its ruling as to what the government must provide. That is the current state of the law. I cannot do something that is not in the law. I would like the law to be changed but as long as it isn't, I have to operate based on the current legal framework.
Here we have a table showing the document, the name, the title, the date and asking the government to state which provision of the Act applies—in other words, which part of section 69 and what kind of document is involved. That is part of our investigation. Even in cases where we do not review the documents, in 24% of cases over the last five years, we have noted that the documents were not Cabinet confidences.
Thank you to the commissioner for being here.
I promise not to cut you off in your answers, unlike the past two questioners.
I listened with some amusement to my colleague Mr. McGuinty speaking about the $12.6 million budget for your office and his concerns about other budget items. Given what his brother has done to the Ontario budget, I as an Ontario taxpayer wish that a similar solicitude for millions, and indeed billions, were shown by all members of the McGuinty family.
However, I want to quickly ask you about your budget. It is $12.6 million right now?
Mr. Godin made reference to or essentially complained that a number of the adjustments you suggested weren't included in the Accountability Act. I thought that opened up the opportunity to discuss a little bit some of the best practices that exist at the provincial level in Canada, which seems to me to be the logical place to turn.
Are there any particular practices, if we are discussing policy options for the future, that ought to be considered and that you could point us to, options that are currently in place in the access legislation and in the parallel office to your own office in any of the provinces?
I realize that you have limited time, so maybe I'll give you the rest of it to offer some thoughts on that.
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Well, they have different models. Some models have order-making powers, some of them don't.
In Canada there hasn't been, to my knowledge, a really good study of the various pros and cons of the various models. You have the Quebec commission, which is a completely different model. To my knowledge, in Canada it hasn't really been looked at in recent years. There have been a lot of amendments to, I think, Alberta's legislation, and B.C. has had amendments to their legislation. There have been a lot of changes since this was last looked at.
Internationally, as well, we have new pieces of legislation. The U.K. and Australia have new pieces of legislation.
So I think there is some very good benchmarking to look at it.
As to whether I can give you a short answer on this beyond what I'm saying now, I can't. Frankly, although I would love to have studied this in depth, I really don't have the time right now with the level of complaints we have.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much as well, Ms. Legault.
What I understood from your opening comments is that you were explaining your limitations in terms of the investigations you carry out in order to access additional information covered by a certificate. You even said that, in terms of modernizing the legislation, this is one thing we may want to look at more closely. I would really like to get an idea of what is involved and understand the process.
When Mr. Brison made an initial request regarding the costs of 18 law-and order bills, he was told that he could not have any of that information because it was a Cabinet confidence. As citizens or as parliamentarians, how do we know whether the request regarding these costs really is subject to Cabinet confidentiality and that a certificate has been issued to that end? That is my first question.
My second question is as follows: do you not think that multiple refusals under the guise of Cabinet confidentiality could be a way of circumventing the Access to Information Act?
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madame Legault, the public has a right to know what their government is doing. It's a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy. Yet this government seems obsessed with secrecy. In your own testimony you suggested that enforcement of the ATI Act would be a lot cheaper if the government would in fact err on the side of the spirit of the act, which is to reveal information and to share information, rather than secrecy.
It's the culture of secrecy that allowed corruption to flourish under the Liberal years, and yet this government seems obsessed with secrecy. It's almost a paranoid obsession to never reveal anything unless somebody, as if pulling teeth, manages to eke it out of them.
Can you expand on your comment? I'm reading from your comments where you say that it would cost a lot less if the government actually followed the spirit of the legislation, which would result in disclosure rather than secrecy. Is it your testimony that the government is not complying with the spirit and the letter of the Access to Information Act?
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I will give a couple of seconds for the room to settle down before we go ahead and start our afternoon session.
We are, of course, still on the same tight timeline we were on this morning.
Minister Nicholson and Minister Toews, it's good to see you both here today. If you have any opening remarks, please share them. Try to be as brief as you can. During your opening remarks please try to introduce the staff you've brought with you, if you can. If not, we'll certainly get to a round of questioning after that, where I'm sure we might get to that.
Documentation is being handed out.
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I'll start. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm pleased to speak to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs about the costs for cracking down on violent crime. Today I will speak to issues concerning the Department of Public Safety and its portfolio agencies. My colleague, the Honourable Rob Nicholson, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, will speak to issues pertaining to the Department of Justice.
The potential witnesses here around the table are listed in the witness list. I don't need to introduce each individual, I presume, given that they've already been noted on the docket.
As you are aware, on February 17, 2011, our government tabled a projected cost estimate in response to a motion brought forward by the member for on December 7, 2010. This estimate was tabled in Parliament. It set out the projected cost of several government bills that address crime, law enforcement, and corrections. It was our belief that this satisfied the information request in the December 7 motion.
The costing tabled on February 17 represented projected costs. It goes without saying that projections are complex and time-consuming exercises. Today, in front of you, is a binder that provides additional information that elaborates on and helps clarify what was presented to the House on February 17. I believe that the information in front of you fully supports and answers the committee's request. It also clearly states whether there are any limitations on the ability of the government to answer any elements of the request, as framed by the motion. In addition, these documents explicitly note and explain any apparent differences between this package and the February 17 tabling. I urge all committee members to review the information laid before you, as it provides clear and accurate details of the legislative costs associated with this government's crime bills.
We all know that crime has a terrible cost for victims, and indeed for all Canadians. This includes costs related to property damage and loss, costs related to lost productivity, as individuals rebuild their lives, and most importantly, costs related to the medical care and support required in response to the physical and mental harm so often done to the victims of crime. These are costs our government believes victims should not have to bear, which is why we have taken such extensive steps to crack down on crime, to prevent it before it happens, to punish it once it has occurred, and to do all we can to ensure that it does not reoccur.
Our government is working hard to keep Canadians safe and to finally put the rights of victims front and centre in our criminal justice system. There may be much we disagree about here today, but I would like to think that we are of one mind on this: a government has no greater responsibility than to ensure the safety and security of its citizens.
Since we were first elected in 2006, this government has told Canadians that we would make changes to the Criminal Code that would make sure that violent and repeat offenders would be subject to tougher sentences. We promised to crack down on violent, gun-related crime. We committed to putting more police onto our streets and to working to secure our borders. We have passed legislation targeting gang violence and organized crime by addressing issues such as gang murders, drive-by shootings, and additional protection for police officers.
Our government is a government of action and commitment. That's why we are in fact doing what we said we would do. We know that action has a cost, a cost that we are willing to pay. We are willing to pay it, because the cost to society is so much greater, and not simply as measured in dollars and cents.
In the current session we have introduced ten pieces of legislation that await passage into law, including bills to end the use of accelerated parole review and measures to combat the heinous practice of human smuggling, a crime that threatens our communities as well as Canada's generous immigration system.
Victims and law-abiding Canadians alike have told us that these measures are critically important, and I take this opportunity to again urge opposition members, and those on this committee in particular, to consider not only the figures on the pages in front of you but the overall cost of crime to our society. After all, protecting Canadians by providing a safe and secure society is worth the price.
Thank you.
Following the presentation by my colleague, the Minister of Justice, I would be happy to respond to any questions that members of the committee may have.
I'm here before this committee to provide additional information and to respond to questions regarding the cost implications of key bills that are critical elements of our law and order agenda. The cost implications to the federal government were of course a consideration as we developed these bills. It's my hope that by being here today with my honourable colleague Vic Toews, the Minister of Public Safety, in addition to providing further information as requested, we can move forward with these reforms.
I hope that honourable members will come to agree that these bills and the accompanying investments are essential to updating our laws and improving our justice system. Most importantly, our bills aim to hold offenders more accountable for their actions and increase Canadians' confidence in our criminal justice system, a system that is envied throughout the world.
I would note, as the information that has been provided indicates, that several of the bills in question do not have cost implications for government. For those that do, we have offered additional information to further explain the cost estimates.
As members know, the motion of the Standing Committee on Finance sought particular information from the relevant departments about specific crime bills. On February 17 our government tabled a document in Parliament to respond to the motion. This document indicated each bill that had cost implications and the overall costs attributed to the identified departments or agencies, broken down by year for a five-year period. The document also noted which bills do not have cost implications and briefly explained why that was the case. The government's intention has always been to comply with the request and provide the information concerning the costs.
We are committed to working with members of Parliament to ensure respect for the role of Parliament, and in keeping with this approach the government respects the Speaker's ruling with respect to the information provided on February 17. Therefore, today we have provided to you detailed information regarding each bill that was referred to in the motion. That information includes a description of the bill, as the elements of the bill are the starting point in assessing whether there are cost implications and the nature of the costs.
I would repeat again that for many of these bills there are no costs, and where this is the case, it is explained.
On the other hand, for some bills there is detailed cost information. For example, for our , our legislation to tackle serious drug crimes, the cost information includes the anticipated impact on the RCMP, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Correctional Service of Canada, and others. Each of these agencies based the cost estimates on relevant factors, experience, and assumptions. But as I stated earlier, this level of detail does not exist for all bills, and this is not due to the government's omission or lack of willingness to share the information, but simply because financial impacts are not expected.
Finally, before I wrap up my remarks I would like to share the following with honourable members. In my four years as Minister of Justice I've had the opportunity to criss-cross our country many times to meet with police, Canadians, and victims whose lives have been forever altered or devastated by crime. From across this country the message I have heard has been the same: Canadians want laws that are effective, that hold criminals accountable and responsible for their actions, and that give victims a voice in our justice system.
Our government has heard this message loud and clear. That is why our justice agenda aims at updating our laws to ensure greater truth in sentencing. Like Canadians, we want to see that the punishment fits the crime and that our justice system delivers justice. Victims and law-abiding Canadians understand that there is a cost to crime, whichever way you look at it. They understand that from prevention programs to rehabilitation, treatment, support for victims, and costs associated with keeping criminals off our streets, crime costs money.
They also understand that letting dangerous criminals roam our streets also costs money. We pay a high price, as a society, when some of these individuals are allowed to roam free. In fact, Canadians know all too well exactly what the costs of crime are. There are many terrible examples, too many to list, and Canadians are troubled, and rightly so, when they see that the severity of the punishment does not fit the severity of the crime. They can lose faith in our criminal justice system when the rights of victims are not respected.
That's when they look to us, their representatives in Parliament, and rightly ask, what are you doing to fix this? As parliamentarians, it's our responsibility to update our criminal laws and to work to improve our justice system to catch up with the bad guys, at the very least, and to ensure that justice is rendered. Our record speaks for itself. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Harper, our government has taken serious measures to get tough on crime and to better protect Canadians, and we will continue to make decisions based on what is needed in order to protect the rights of victims and make our communities safer.
Colleagues, I seek your support for our justice and public safety agenda, and I hope that the information we have provided to you today regarding these cost implications will assist you in your analysis.
Thank you very much.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ministers, and thank you to your officials for being here.
Minister Toews, number one, thank you for providing the information. Obviously this information is attempting to support, elaborate, and probably clarify the information that was tabled last month in the House. I know that Mr. Brison and others obviously have their own agenda, but it is, in my view, transparency at work.
[Laughter]
Mr. Tom Lukiwski: We've heard a lot of numbers. We've heard the number $2.1 billion over five years. That's to put an end to the revolving door of the justice system and put criminals behind bars, where they belong to begin with.
In information that you tabled in the House or the government House leader tabled in the House on your behalf last month, it showed the government's remaining tough on crime legislation costing approximately $650 million. I think Minister Nicholson said it's $631 million--close enough. Canadians obviously are hearing a lot of numbers. I'd like to give you an opportunity to clarify what these numbers mean.
If you take the $2.1 billion that you had said would be the cost over five years and add the $631 million or $650 million, that totals approximately $2.7 billion.
Is the cost information regarding Bill , the $2.1 billion, included in this information? And if not, why not? Secondly, if it's not, would it be accurate to say that, fundamentally, the total cost of the crime legislation has already been disclosed?
:
Let me say first of all that I'm not aware that any information was requested on Bill .
The $2.1 billion number comes in respect of the construction of new units for prisons. Presently our capacity in prisons is approximately 15,000. Mr. Head, the commissioner, is here. The $2.1 billion is for the construction of approximately 2,700 additional units and for replacing some of the aging infrastructure that is required.
Let me repeat, Mr. Lukiwski, that there are no new prisons. These are 2,700 units in existing prisons. That is the estimate we received from Corrections Canada on what we would need with the increase as a result of the truth-in-sentencing laws.
The estimate last year was that by this month this year there would be approximately 1,300 new prisoners. I received the figures this morning, and there are 500-and-some new prisoners. So even on those kinds of estimates, where the department has diligently tried to estimate what the costs are going to be, the costs will not be as much, given the fact that the estimates made by Corrections Canada are about half of what was originally estimated.
The estimates will change from month to month, but in terms of the information we've provided you, of the $2.1 billion, $800 million relates to construction costs and $1.2 billion or so relates to operating costs over five years.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to our two ministers.
My first question is as follows. When the committee made a request to the different departments affected by the motion adopted on November 17, 2010, the government responded this way on December 1:
The issue of whether there are any costs associated with the implementation of any of the government's justice bills is a matter of confidence and, as such, the government is not in a position to provide such information or documents.
So, on December 1, there was no question of providing information regarding the justice bills identified in the motion passed by the Standing Committee on Finance. On February 17, the tabled a document in the House providing a certain amount of information, although that information was obviously incomplete. There was a great deal of detail missing.
What happened between December 1 and February 17 that resulted in information that was considered confidential by your government, because it was a Cabinet confidence, suddenly being released on February 17? It suddenly became possible to release some of those documents. However, they are woefully inadequate.
The proof of that—and you yourself admit this—is that today, you have come here with a document that basically presents the same information that was tabled in the House on February 17, but with additional details.
How do you explain the government's response last December 1?
:
Yes, and that is pretty much the problem. On February 17, the tabled this document in the House. And basically, this document is the same as the other one, but with additional detail.
The Speaker of the House made his ruling on March 7. That means that the Speaker is of the view that this document or the one before it does not comply with the orders issued by the House and that the fundamental principle is that parliamentarians have the right to receive all the information.
Some means must be found to protect national security and the public interest. We are evidence of that because, with respect to the Afghan documents, we were able to find a mechanism that suited both Liberal and Bloc members.
How is it that for the rest of the documentation that you have not submitted, you are unable to carry out the same kind of process—in other words, to have a special committee or some other body become involved so that we are able to see all the documents and ensure that the information made available is indeed adequate and complies with the request made in the House?
For the time being, I am not satisfied, because these documents are pretty much the same. In both cases, there was the ruling by the Speaker on March 7.
Would you be prepared to consider setting up the same type of mechanism as the one used for the Afghan documents? Actually, I should say that, unfortunately, a member of the panel died Sunday. I want to extend my condolences to his family.
:
Let me briefly respond to that. That's certainly a decision the House can make; it's certainly not something that we as ministers can determine.
All the officials can do is provide you with information that is not a cabinet confidence. If the House determines that they want the same system that they did with the Afghan documents, there's nothing stopping this House from making that determination if they so wish.
But I want to point out that even in the context of the Afghanistan documents, those are not cabinet confidences that were released to the committee. As I understand it, the process is that jurists determine whether or not the document is a cabinet confidence. If they determine that it's a cabinet confidence, it's not disclosed to the committee members--
Mr. Pierre Paquette: Oui, mais--
:
I have a lot of trouble understanding why some information that you were prepared to deliver on February 17 was considered to be confidential or a Cabinet confidence, on December 1. That is something I cannot understand and it definitely shakes my confidence as a parliamentarian.
Furthermore, in order to determine whether the information you have provided does indeed reflect what the Standing Committee on Finance and the House were asking for, we need to know on what basis the estimates were developed. How many inmates are you projecting? Also, what is your unit cost per inmate? Once again, we need to know the underlying assumptions in each case. What is the cost per full-time equivalent? Also, what is the cost of the new cells?
So, once again, I am not convinced that we have all the information requested by the Standing Committee on Finance and the House of Commons—I would remind you that a motion was passed on February 17—nor am I convinced that the information you are providing is adequate to allow us to ascertain the veracity of the figures here. We will have an opportunity in the coming days to find out more.
:
Absolutely. That's why I began by apologizing to 480,000 public servants on behalf of the official opposition. Canadians will make up their own minds, Mr. Chair, when they read the clippings and see the quotes. Trust me, they will, and they already have.
Ministers, I'd like to read for you this definition. This is the definition in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary of the word “contempt”, because this is what we're here to deal with today and tomorrow and Friday.
For the first time in Canadian history, your government—the first of 13 minority governments to do so in this country's history—is now on a slippery slope to potentially being found in contempt by this committee, so let me just read for you the definition of “contempt”: “a feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration or worthless, or deserving scorn or extreme reproach”.
Ministers, I want to ask this. In the context of the definition of the word “contempt”, why is it that it took a gun to the head of your government to force you to appear here today and do a document dump? For more than four months, reasonable Canadians have been watching this drama unfold, not knowing why your government refused to comply with motion after motion after motion and only complied after you were brought to heel by the Speaker in a ruling with respect to Afghan documents, and then subsequently brought to heel two more times: one with respect to your colleague, the Minister of International Cooperation, and another with respect to actually telling the truth to Canadians about the costs.
It's their money, Ministers. We're asking them to eat these costs. I'm sure we have our differences, Ministers, on your approach to law and order. I'm sure we have our differences with respect to Newt Gingrich's views on where we should be going with Republican law and order stuff. I'm sure we do, but I'm sure we would also agree—at least I thought we could agree—that from an accountability perspective, you wouldn't have waited four months to be dragged in here and drop—what is it?—1,000 pages of material on Canadians just 18 minutes before this committee starts, Mr. Chair--18 minutes.
I mean, what is it with this regime, Ministers, that each and every time...? Now, for the first time in Canadian history, you are on the slippery slope to being found in contempt by the people of Canada, through the people who represent them in the House of Commons.
Just before you comment, I'd like to read for you the actual quote from Mr. Harper, when he said:
Without adequate access to key information about government policies and programs, citizens and parliamentarians cannot make informed decisions, and...
—here's the kicker—
...incompetent or corrupt governance can be hidden under a cloak of secrecy.
In the context of the definition of the word “contempt”, in the context of the comments made by your leader, Mr. Harper, and in the context of your conduct for the past four months, how is it possible Canadians are expected to believe that you are playing here in good faith, and how can they possibly trust the numbers that are forthcoming in this budget?
:
Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman.
I have a technical question to ask, but before I do that, to help folks along who are trying to follow this on TV, I thought I might point out that these hearings are being held in response to a motion that was tabled by Mr. Brison requesting the costs of a series of 18 pieces of government legislation. However, not included among those 18 pieces was Bill , the Truth in Sentencing Act, so I'm a bit perplexed that there are references from the other side, complaints about the fact that costing relating to that bill is not included.
They didn't ask for it. Mr. Brison didn't ask for it; he's free to do so at a future date. I am perplexed at his frustration at not finding cost estimates for a bill he forgot to include in his package being included in the response to the documents he did get.
I didn't want a comment from the Minister. I wanted to have a comment on the question that follows, because we have limited time here.
The chart that was originally submitted in response to Mr. Brison's question in the House back in February contains information. Of course, today we received this very substantial binder of material. Are there any variances between the costs in the chart tabled February 17 and the additional material tabled today?
While answering that question, I'd appreciate it if you could also elaborate on the planning assumptions used both for the document tabled in February and for today's additional information.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like you to signal me when I have one minute left, because my colleague would also like to ask a question.
I would like to confirm what Mr. Brison has just said. There are interesting, if not substantial, differences. We cannot be a party to this masquerade. I looked at the document quickly: 90% of what is here are simply copies of bills regarding which the Standing Committee on Finance requested information. And we are still being served up the same excuses. So, they are not complying with the order from the House. If I'm asked what I think, I can tell you that, having quickly reviewed the document, they are still not complying.
I could cite the example of Bill . It allows judges to order that an accused will not be eligible for parole for 25 years for each offence. In the document you tabled on February 17 with respect to Bill C-48, it says: “The Correctional Service of Canada is not expecting a significant financial impact on the Service. Any future impact will be dealt with as part of the usual reference level adjustment process”. So, there is the bill, but it is only two and a quarter pages long. That is the new material. It also says: “Longer sentences could result in increased costs for the Correctional Service of Canada [...]” Before there were no increased costs, but now, there are. I will keep on reading: “[...] but it is not possible to project those costs at this time”.
And because those costs cannot be projected, there is no answer being provided to the following questions either: “What is the estimate of marginal costs, broken down by category (capital costs) [...]” and so on. The answer is: “This does not apply. See section ‘Explanation for failure to answer questions’.” And the explanation is simply: “[...] it is not possible to project costs at this time.” And a little further on, it says: “[...] If CSC requires additional resources as a result of this bill, supplementary funding will be requested.”
It is fairly normal, for parliamentarians who are looking at bills that have passed, to at least have an idea of what they will cost. I cannot believe that the Department of Public Safety is not in a position to provide a rough estimate of the cost of Bill C-48 over time. In my opinion, they are hiding figures from parliamentarians that the latter have every right to receive. The Speaker was very clear on that point.
I would just like to remind you, once again, that this document was tabled on February 17 and that, after it was tabled, the Speaker handed down his ruling, saying that this was potentially a case of contempt of Parliament. It also raised a question of privilege.
My question is simple: how could the committee's finding possibly be anything other than that the government is guilty of contempt of Parliament? What are your arguments? That certainly is not one.
:
Monsieur Paquette, you mentioned Bill . That is the bill that is directed against multiple murderers, meaning individuals who kill more than one person. Instead of their being eligible for parole after 25 years, regardless of the number of people they have murdered, we are now giving judges the discretion to increase that to 50 or 75 years if there's a second or a third murder.
When you ask what the cost is, the public servants, whom I'm sure you respect, have come to the conclusion that no detailed cost information is available because the provision is discretionary. It only applies to multiple murderers, and any impact would only be apparent in future years. That means there will be no apparent cost to this for 25 years, because the individual who was convicted of first-degree murder will be there for 25 years. They're saying that since it's discretionary, it is impossible to guess what the incremental costs will be in 25 or 50 years. That's all I'm asking you to do.
You may disagree and say we shouldn't be coming down hard on multiple murderers. That's your business. You can do that, and we can have these points of disagreement, but if you're asking what costs there will be 25 or 50 years from now, the public servants who have helped put these together say it is virtually impossible to determine. You're talking about something discretionary and something that won't happen for 25 years.
[Translation]
Like the ministers, I am here with my entire entourage, although I am only appearing as an individual. I haven't seen The Mikado, the opera that focuses on...
[English]
Let me introduce myself. I'm Mel Cappe. I happen to be the president of the Institute for Research on Public Policy for the next month, and I am and will continue to be a professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto.
I had a career of over 30 years in the federal public service, culminating as High Commissioner in the United Kingdom, and have been Clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the cabinet and head of the public service as well as deputy minister in several departments. Lest anyone think that because I was the Clerk of the Privy Council for Jean Chrétien I was somehow partisan, I want you to be aware that the first order in council naming me to the ranks of deputy minister was during the Mulroney government, and I've served seven prime ministers in my time.
Let me offer a disclaimer at the outset. I've been out of Ottawa for nine years and I've been out of government for five; therefore, I am dated. I earned this grey beard and therefore offered to help the committee.
There are two issues I'd like to address. The first is the question of cabinet confidences. I heard the conversation this morning with the law clerk and the Information Commissioner. I want the committee to understand that I'm a big defender of cabinet confidences, and I think that it is necessary for good government to have candour in cabinet exchanges. Frankly, it's been recognized by Parliament. Parliament passed the Access to Information Act and chose not to exempt cabinet confidences, but to exclude cabinet confidences, so when the government claims privilege on cabinet confidences, I think the're doing the right thing. It's recognized by Parliament in section 69 of the Access to Information Act. As well, there's an absolute exception, which I know Mr. Walsh talked about this morning, in section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act, which states that the clerk, with absolutely no review or restriction, can claim confidences of the Queen's Privy Council to be exempt.
Given the wording of Mr. Brison's motion and the finance committee's request for information in which you asked for “documents”, I can understand that it could be possible for the Prime Minister and the government to have interpreted this as a request for cabinet documents. As such the government claimed privilege and said that cabinet confidences will not be released. That was a legitimate response of the Prime Minister.
The committee, I think, was asking not for cabinet confidences; rather, it was asking for information. I heard the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety just now indicate that they were prepared to provide the committee with information. I think it's much better to view this as a demand for information, which brings me to my second point.
There is no doubt in my mind, and certainly the Speaker made this clear, that Parliament has a right to adequate information on which to pass legislation. Therefore when you parliamentarians come to judgment on legislation, you need to know what the implications of that are and what the long-term costs are.
Citizen Cappe, appearing before you, wants to make sure that parliamentarians have adequate information before they pass legislation.
[Translation]
When I was Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Board in the 1990s, I spent four and a half years appearing before committees such as yours explaining the process for identifying program costs.
[English]
First there is the expenditure management system, which continues now, as far as I understand it. The Treasury Board Secretariat and finance officials insist that all new programs or proposals for programs or for legislation that go to cabinet must have a notional costing of anything for which there will be implications of costs.
However, those costs cannot be put into main estimates until they're elaborated, so this notional costing takes place, and therefore, for instance, the government's tabling of main estimates might not include some of the announcements that were in the budget. They will wait for an appropriation act wherein the costs have been elaborated, so therefore supplementary estimates come to Parliament for approval in an appropriation act.
I bother to elaborate this because I want to distinguish that notional spending estimate from the actual spending required. It's in that context that I want to conclude by saying that cabinet confidences must be protected and, at the same time, Parliament must have adequate information for making judgments on legislation. I'm not going to pass judgment on the binders you've just received that I have not seen yet, but it strikes me that this is the kind of material that parliamentarians need in order to come to judgment and say, “Is this in the public interest?”, and pass legislation.
Thank you.
You can offer an opinion if you wish, but part of that, I am sure, is because during that period of time we were dealing with a majority government. We heard Mr. Walsh talk about that as well: if you have the numbers, great; if you don't, you don't. This means that in a majority government, the government of the day has the majority on committees. In other words, it has the majority number of members at committee.
It would be very difficult, I would suggest, in a majority government regime, for any motion such as the one we see before us today to actually pass at the committee level. Would you agree with that assessment?
:
Again, I'd rather use my own words. What we heard before was Mr. Walsh ducking, so let's be clear, and I'm going to do the same.
The fact is that with respect to cabinet confidences, I come back to this principle that it is not the Queen's public council, but the Queen's Privy Council. It is the government and the cabinet, as the Governor in Council, that is actually discussing and debating what should be done, and if you have that as not private and allow it to be open, you will undermine the candour and credibility of the conversation that takes place inside. Parliament has recognized this over time and it has passed legislation, both in the Canada Evidence Act and in the Access to Information Act, that says there is an exclusion--and an absolute exclusion--for those documents.
By the way, again, Madame Legault kept talking about documents. I want to talk about the conversations, the exchanges. It's all of those things that have to be protected if you want good government. Good government requires openness, as someone earlier said, but good government also requires secrecy.
A voice: Hear, hear!
:
We had many such requests. There were always those kinds of requests, and they were always refused.
I want to be clear: they were the application of the access to information.... I have to be very careful here, Mr. Chairman, because I am actually in the Supreme Court still with a decision pending from a case from 2001 in which the access to information commissioner has taken us on appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. We're waiting for a judgment. Nothing I say is relevant to that case sub judice.
That said, whenever we received requests for those kinds of documents, we would apply the Access to Information Act, so insofar as they were confidences, they were excluded; insofar as they dealt with national security, they were exempted, and those sections would have been redacted and the clean document, if you will, would have been released.
Again, we're talking about the Access to Information Act, section 69, as I was applying it, or section 21, which was advice to ministers, or section 16 on investigations, etc.
There were also cases in which defendants in court or parties to a court case were asking for evidence for cabinet confidences in relation to processes before court, and using section 39, we excluded cabinet confidences as well.
However, basically, that's right.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Cappe. You are our first witness today to enjoy tremendous freedom, given that you no longer have to be accountable to anyone but yourself. It's a great privilege to have you here today. Your expertise will be extremely valuable.
We are confronted with a government that likes to control information, be it in relation to reporters, citizens or parliamentarians. When you are Clerk of the Privy Council, are you ever told to make a very restrictive selection of Cabinet documents deemed to be secret or confidential, which, in a way, is a way of circumventing the Access to Information Act? Can you be directed in such a way as to end up aligning yourself with the ideology or approach of the government in office?
:
Thank you, Chair and members of the committee.
We are pleased to be here to answer your questions.
[Translation]
With me today is Donna Dériger, Acting Senior Director, Office of the Comptroller General. Ms. Dériger is responsible for the Treasury Board Secretariat Guide to Costing.
[English]
We'd be happy to answer your questions on the guidance we provide to departments on the costing of initiatives or on the role of the Treasury Board in approving funding for the implementation of government initiatives.
Departments are expected to prepare cost estimates in memoranda to cabinet and Treasury Board submissions on the basis of the guidance provided by the secretariat through the TBS guide on the preparation of TB submissions and the TBS “Guide to Costing”. Cost estimates provided by the departments are the responsibility of the deputy head and require the sign-off of the department's chief financial officer. Treasury Board's role is focused on the assessment of submissions prepared by departments for funding when initiatives are ready for implementation. Funding decisions are then compiled into the estimates documents tabled in Parliament. Departments report to Parliament annually on their planned spending and on their actual results.
[Translation]
We would be pleased to elaborate further on these processes.
[English]
Thank you very much.
I welcome Mr. Smith and Madam Dériger here today.
I was a member of the Treasury Board committee of cabinet. I worked with Treasury Board during that period of time. In fact, I want to commend Madam Dériger, who was one of the authors of the “Guide to Costing”. Obviously, she will know it very well.
On page 10 of the “Guide to Costing” of Treasury Board, for the costing of a new initiative, incremental funding, it says:
All the costs of a new initiative for a department must be known, including costs of employee benefits and accommodation. For a new initiative that is incremental to existing programs, it is necessary to know the incremental financial impact; that is, the costs that change as a result of the decision.
For cabinet to render a decision on a piece of legislation, it is required, based on this Treasury Board guide, for Treasury Board and Finance to work with the specific department--in this case it would be Justice and Public Safety--to provide that information, correct?
:
Right. I just pulled that one out of thin air, so perhaps that's not fair. You didn't come prepared to comment on that bill.
Private members' bills, as you know, unless they receive a royal recommendation, which never happens, cannot, under....
I'm sorry, Mr. Proulx is correcting me. But it doesn't happen in the normal course.
At any rate, they are required to be items that would not impose costs on the federal government. Are there ever bills that originate with the ministry that have no costs associated with them?
Thank you very much to both of you for being here this afternoon.
Mr. Smith, in your opening remarks you said you would be happy to answer questions on the guidance provided to departments on the costing initiatives. I want to get your insight for Canadians on the guidance or support that Treasury Board provides to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
I just want to remind everybody what the mandate of the PBO is. He'll be joining us here shortly to give us his insight. It's to provide independent analysis to Parliament on the state of the nation's finances, the government's estimates and trends in the Canadian economy, and, upon request from a committee or parliamentarian, to estimate the financial cost of any proposal for matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction.
We would agree that's the mandate.
Mr. Smith, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who was appointed three years ago next week, has repeatedly publicly decried that Treasury Board, the Department of Finance, PCO, and line departments are regularly shutting him down in his overtures for information so he can do his job. It's not a surprise to anybody here. We've all heard it repeatedly. After being appointed by Parliament in a post created by Parliament to enhance trust in our country's finances, it has gone from him reminding people that he should have access to this information to, on several occasions, senior members of the government disparaging his credibility.
Can you help us understand? You're the associate secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada. You have access to all the numbers. The Canadian people are confused because they hear the Parliamentary Budget Officer say, for example, that 65 stealth fighter jets are going to cost some $29.2 billion over a fixed period of time. First the government says they're going to cost $9 billion, then they're going to cost $13 billion, then they're going to cost $15 billion, and then they're going to cost $16 billion.
Most deficit projection numbers put out by the Minister of Finance have proven to be wrong, when in most instances they have been proven to be right in terms of the PBO's work.
Why is this happening? Why is the PBO not getting access to all the information he needs so we can do our jobs and Canadians can have more trust in the state of the country's finances?
Actually I have a few introductions. With me today are Sahir Khan, assistant parliamentary budget officer for expenditure and revenue analysis, and Dr. Mostafa Askari, assistant parliamentary budget officer for economic and fiscal analysis.
Good evening, Mr. Chair, vice-chairs, and members of the committee. Thank you for inviting me and my colleagues to speak to you today about fiscal transparency in the context of your specific review of the existence or extent of government compliance.
[Translation]
I have a few brief opening remarks based on the Parliamentary Budget Officer report dated February 25, 2011 entitled Analysis of Government Responses to a Motion of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.
My views on the provision of financial information and analysis to Parliament are shaped by three points. First, the Parliament of Canada owes a fiduciary duty to the Canadian people to control public monies on their behalf. Canada's Constitution established and affirms this duty. Second, to assist in the fulfillment of this duty, the Parliament of Canada, through the Accountability Act in December 2006, created the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer and tasked him or her with providing independent and transparent analysis on economic trends, the nation's finances, the estimates, and costing. In order to provide such analysis to Parliament, the Parliamentary Budget Officer needs access to financial and related information and analysis contained within the government's Expenditure Management System. This information and analysis is routinely collected, generated, and presented by government departments and central agencies.
PBO analysis of documents provided by the government to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, and tabled on February 17, 2011 in the House of Commons, addressed three issues: first, the estimated costs of the planned reduction of corporate income tax rates; second, the incremental costs to the fiscal framework of the government's justice legislation; and, third, the estimated cost of the F-35 aircraft.
[English]
From a PBO perspective, with respect to corporate profits and tax revenues, the government has provided an adequate response to the finance committee request. In addition to projected income components such as corporate profits, personal income, etc., parliamentarians are advised to ask the government to provide underlying assumptions in all future annual budgets and updates.
Second, with respect to justice legislation, the government has not provided an adequate response to the finance committee request. Again, Chair, we have not seen the information tabled today, but the government has not provided an adequate response to the finance committee request.
Full compliance with the request requires clarity around the projected cost estimates, such as whether they are incremental or presented on a cash or accrual basis; a breakdown of costs between operating and capital for all information provided; details of the government's underlying methodologies, assumptions, cost drivers, and risk; and basic statistics, such as head counts, annual flows, and unit costs per inmate, per employee, and per new cell construction.
A modest example of the nature and extent of such compliance might be found in the PBO report entitled “The Funding Requirement and Impact of the 'Truth in Sentencing Act' on the Correctional System in Canada”.
Third, with respect to the proposed acquisition of the F-35 joint strategic fighter, which was included in the original FINA motion, the government has not provided an adequate response to the finance committee request. Full compliance with the request requires details of the government's underlying methodologies, assumptions, cost drivers, and risks; documents related to acquisition and life cycle costs; and an explanation as to why new or unplanned sources of funds from the fiscal framework will not be needed to fund the new purchase.
A modest example of the nature and extent of such compliance might be found in the PBO's report entitled “An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada's Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter”.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak. We would be happy to take your questions.
Thank you, Mr. Page, for being here today.
First I want to go to an incorrect assumption that our colleague, Mr. Brison, has been floating here today, and that deals with the committee's request about, number one, information on baseline funding, and, number two, annual reference levels. If Mr. Brison had taken the time to read the explanatory notes--and I understand, Mr. Page, you haven't seen the documents that came today so I'm certainly not suggesting that you should know what's contained here. But in the explanatory notes...and I'm just going to read a couple of sections here for you very quickly.
The committee requested, of course, “the baseline departmental funding requirement excluding the impacts of the bills and Acts broken down by Capital, Operations and Maintenance and Other categories.” In the explanatory note the government states, “For some bills...the baseline funding can be identified and is recorded in the appended answers.” So that information is provided. Mr. Brison says it isn't, and it has been today.
The explanatory note goes on to say that “For some bills, however, baseline funding does not exist because implementing a bill may involve new activities that were not previously funded and as a result, did not have an existing baseline funding level.”
It goes on to say, “Finally, for some bills there is no clear answer to the request because baseline funding is not categorized in a manner that directly relates to the object of the bill.”
I'm not going to ask you to comment on that, sir, only because you haven't had a chance to examine the entire document and it would be unfair of me to ask that. Suffice it to say that in response to Mr. Brison's allegations that we have not provided proper information, in fact the government has done exactly that, and I'm sure this will certainly be identified by you, sir, once you've had an opportunity to read these documents.
But let me go back to some testimony we just recently heard from the associate secretary to the Treasury Board of Canada, Mr. Alister Smith. Mr. Smith commented just a few moments ago that many times a difference in opinion between cost estimates from your office and the Department of Finance may not be differences in fact but differences in the assumptions made by both your office and the Department of Finance. Would you agree that this would be an accurate statement, generally speaking?
:
So let's go to a specific example and see if we can square a circle a little to see why there may be some differences of opinion on cost.
Much of the criticism about some of our crime bills revolves around your report alleging that the actual cost of crime legislation will be far higher than what is expected or projected by the government. I think that is a fair statement. However, I would point out that on February 17, during an exchange between Madam Mourani and Correctional Service Commissioner Don Head, an important point was made. This all goes down to my initial question on assumptions.
Your office operated on the assumption that housing a female inmate costs $340,000 a year, when Mr. Head confirmed that in reality it is far less than that; it could be as low as an average of $113,974 a year. So the assumption you were using, as opposed to the assumption CSC was using, at the low average could be a difference of over $200,000 per inmate. Could that possibly be a reason why some of your projections could be considered to be grossly overestimated?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Page, I'd like to welcome you and your colleagues to the committee.
With respect to corporate profits and tax revenues, you stated in your presentation that the government has provided an adequate response to the Finance Committee request. However, you are advising parliamentarians to ask the government to provide not only the projections, but the underlying assumptions.
In the document you prepared for the Standing Committee on Finance on February 25, you said that you believe the government is underestimating the impact of tax cuts on tax revenues. Were you able to access the government's assumptions or did you manage on your own to extrapolate the models or assumptions it used in order to arrive at those results?
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Allow me to clarify certain points in English.
[English]
Even more, perhaps, it was very helpful for us to get the corporate profits projections and to get estimates of the effective tax rates for corporate income taxes, because that allowed us to compare Department of Finance projections not only with ours but actually even with the private sector's. There, what we found was that when you look at corporate profits as a share of income, the Department of Finance was relatively optimistic in terms of a strong recovery in corporate profits--optimistic relative to an average private sector forecast and relative to PBO assumptions.
Their effective tax rates weren't fundamentally...they were a little bit higher than what we were carrying at the PBO. We were a bit surprised by how low, given those assumptions, the impacts were that were provided through the motion, in terms of the magnitudes of the corporate income tax reductions.
That information allows us to do that type of analysis, to put it in a report, and to make it available to all parliamentarians so that all of you collectively have a better understanding of what the planning framework is for the next five years. So it was very valuable. We are appreciative that we received that information. But we didn't get access to the detailed models.
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You say there is a summary of estimated cost projections over a five-year period for five bills, but you point out in one note that there no definition of what is meant by “estimated cost projections”. You have to know what it includes in order to make a proper assessment.
For all the other bills, absolutely no information was provided by the government—in other words, there is no summary of estimated cost projections over five years, no breakdown of operating costs, capital costs or any other costs. Are the data consistent with the Guide to Costing? We don't know. The basic assumptions are not identified, the detailed analysis and projections are not available, the costing methodology is not provided and, finally, the costs reflected in the financial planning framework and annual departmental reference levels are not known either.
Basically, this table shows that we are still in the dark as to the overall costs of the various bills you have targeted, which are also partly targeted in the motion passed by the House.
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Yes, but again, look what it says with regard to Bill :
No detailed costs estimates are available because any impact of the amendments would be on the provincial and territorial corrections costs. The Bill should not result in cost impacts for Correctional Service of Canada because young persons are rarely held in these facilities.
That means a young person goes into a provincial jail instead of a federal one, so it's not a federal cost. At the same time, as the minister said today, any costs will be negotiated with the provinces. There will be a cost somewhere. I'm sure the provinces will say, “Look, you in Ottawa are not going to dump onto us the cost of all of those bills you're bringing in; somebody has to pay for it.”
Shouldn't the government estimate how much it will cost and not just say no, no, this is going to provinces, so it's not costing us anything?
Are you satisfied with those answers?
Thank you very much, Mr. Page and team, for being here. Thank you for your good work.
I want to explore where my colleague Monsieur Godin left off.
I put to the assistant secretary of the Treasury Board, before your arrival here today, a question with respect to your office's access to information. The government will have us believe and regularly will put forward the idea that this is simply a difference in assumptions--not in facts, but assumptions.
All right, let's say there are varying degrees of assumptions. We can talk about that.
I want to ask you a question about something I don't think there is a varying degree of assumption about, or for that matter subjectivity about. Are you getting access to the information you ask for from this government?
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Sir, on some occasions we have received access to information. As a result of the motion, we now have information we've been actually asking for since I think the fall of 2008, the information on corporate profits projections, so that we can actually do a reconciliation.
What we've said today, sir, was that this should just be standard practice. As we have shared this information in the past with the private sector, we should be doing this now.
I think, sir, that's what we said in our report on February 25, because we now have that information.
We definitely struggled on crime legislation to get information. We got some information in a recent report on F-35, but none sufficient for us to actually reconcile estimates because we don't understand the methodologies behind it.
I'm going to raise with you right now a piece of paper that was distributed today on estimated provincial costs on one bill, Bill . The government now says they're going to ask provinces to eat $2.467 billion in costs over the next five years. That's the cost to the provinces in five years to implement youth justice.
The costing requires consultation and judgment, right? Are provinces stakeholders? Shouldn't provinces know that this is coming down the line? Shouldn't we as parliamentarians know, on behalf of Canadians, whether or not provinces can afford $2.467 billion on one bill over five years before giving this government the authority to spend more money on Bill at the federal level?
How is it possible that we could be expected to do that unless we exercise our responsibilities and ask where the provincial money is going to come from?”
I'm just going to make a comment on something and not ask for your response, since we only have five minutes. It goes back to a discussion we were having earlier about costs of prison construction. You talked about whether the assumptions are for single bunks, double bunks, triple bunks, and things like that.
One of the things that came into account here was the estimation that the Correctional Service of Canada and prison officials had. They estimated that over the course of the last fiscal year approximately 1,280 new inmates would be incarcerated. The actual number was 519. So there are more than 700 inmates who were projected to be incarcerated and were not, at an estimated cost by your office of $340,000, at least for female inmates. Clearly that would result in projections being way out of whack. So again, I put that to my colleagues opposite. But my question for you is not on that--that's a fact--because there were differences between forecasts and actual numbers.
I want to go back to follow up a little bit on what my colleague Mr. McGuinty was talking about. I find it quite incredible. He keeps going to the same well again. Let me just ask you: what statute specifies what information your office is entitled to?
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I'd like to talk about the first point, in terms of the facts and the numbers as they've come in so far. In terms of information on exceptions, actually, sir, I worked for Mr. Cappe at the Privy Council Office. I spent more than 25 years in mostly central agencies. I've been in cabinet rooms with both this government, including this Prime Minister, and previous prime ministers in different governments.
It's clear to us that with that kind of background we should not get real cabinet confidence information, and we should not be given personal information on Canadians, their financial states, what have you. I think we have a pretty good sense of where the line is.
We've been told on multiple occasions that corporate profits projections were cabinet confidences, even though we know that in fact they were shared in the past. Having worked many, many years in finance at Treasury Board and the Privy Council Office doing the same costing work I'm providing to you, sir, I don't understand.... I've been in cabinet rooms. Those conversations and those methodologies and those assumptions, like corporate profits, are not associated with a cabinet discussion. This is information that's the normal course of business. We have lots of people working on methodologies. It cuts across multiple departments in many cases. It's not really a small circle of people who work on it.
For me, the extension of this information as to a cabinet confidence we've challenged on multiple occasions. I think there is a debate that needs to take place as to what is truly cabinet confidence.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Page. This is the first time we've met.
I want to say right away that although I did not study either finance or economics, I have everything I need to understand exactly what is going on this afternoon. From what I understand—and you'll tell me if I'm mistaken—on the one hand, we are being told that the government gave all the necessary information to parliamentarians to allow them to accurately assess its law-and-order bills. On the other hand, some people—including you—are questioning how anyone can say that the government is right when we are unaware of its working assumptions, methodology, analytical models or scenario. We cannot compare your analysis with the government's because we don't know where the government got its figures or what analysis it is basing itself on. In financial or social research, the working assumptions are very important in terms of understanding the results you're seeking to achieve or believe you will achieve.
Earlier, Mr. Lukiwski told you that under your mandate, there are some exceptions when it comes to documents. There are documents that you are unable to access from the government or Privy Council. Do you believe that the government's assumptions and analytical models are part of the documents that you are unable to access because of the various exceptions identified for us?
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According to what you're saying, the government's working assumptions and analysis should not normally be Cabinet confidences. In that case, they should be released or made public.
As I see it, if the government believes in its bills, feels it is on the right track and is truly anxious to secure the unanimous support of the House for its bills, it is in its interests to be transparent and make its working assumptions public, in order to convince us that it is indeed on the right track. However, it is doing exactly the opposite. It is keeping its assumptions and methodology under wraps and failing to provide us with the tools that would enable us to develop an informed opinion about the tables and figures.
Since this morning, they would have us believe that we have in front of us everything we need to make a proper assessment. I'm sorry, but I do not share the opinion of Mr. Lukiwski, who seems so positive and optimistic, because you have convinced me that neither you nor we have the analytical grid used by the government that would allow us to compare figures. It seems to me it would perfectly normal for the government, in order to convince us that it's on the right track, to make its figures and scenarios public in order to make Quebeckers and Canadians aware of its approach to crime law.
Do you agree, Mr. Page?
We'll do our best. It is six o'clock on the evening before.
On Mr. Lukiwski's motion....
(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]
The Chair: It passes. So let's do both. Great.
We have one more piece of committee business. For this study and another study, there has been a budget put together for staff, for the cost of our being here and the like. It is $8,950 on both of the studies.
Do I have permission from the committee to sign those?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
The Chair: Okay. Done.
Is there anything else for the good of...?
Monsieur Godin.