:
I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. Just so that everyone is aware, this meeting is in public. There was a little confusion about one of the reports, but this first hour will be in public.
The committee is meeting today from 3:30 to 5:30. In the first hour, we will hear from TBS officials in public about the documents submitted pursuant to the committee’s order of Wednesday, March 10. During the second hour the committee will go in camera to discuss committee business.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much the way it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice at the bottom of your screen of either the floor, English or French.
Thank you, everybody, for bearing with us while we resolved these issues.
Thank you, Mr. Purves and Mr. Ermuth, for staying with us during this time. I appreciate that.
I will continue from where we were. Very quickly, as I indicated, before you speak, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak you may click on the microphone icon to activate your mike. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.
To raise a point of order during the meeting, committee members should ensure that their microphone is unmuted and say “Point of order” to get the chair's attention.
In order to ensure social distancing in the committee room, if you need to speak privately with the clerk or the analyst during the meeting, please email them through the committee email address. For those people who are participating in the committee room, please note that masks are required unless seated and when physical distancing is not possible.
I will now invite the witnesses to make their opening statements.
Mr. Purves, thank you very much.
Good afternoon to you and committee members. It is a pleasure to be back today in the earliest slot possible, and I'm happy to be joined by Roger Ermuth, assistant comptroller general, from our Office of the Comptroller General.
I'll be brief in my remarks because this is an opportunity to receive feedback from the committee regarding our response to the committee's March 10 motion and to answer any questions members may have. We look forward to receiving members' feedback and to be in a position to best meet the needs of the committee.
In terms of context, with the unprecedented impact COVID-19 has had on Canadians, Parliament has prioritized measures that respond to the crisis. Funding for COVID-19 priorities was presented within the three supplementary estimates tabled for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Taken together, those estimates presented $159.5 billion in planned spending authorities for organizations across the Government of Canada related to COVID-19 measures.
It is important to note that these estimates are “up to” authorities that have been provided to address, on an urgent basis, the uncertainty in which these measures were brought forward within the context of the pandemic. To further explain planned COVID-19-related spending, additional information was presented in the supplementary estimates, including, for example, a detailed listing of COVID-19 legislation in part 1, an online annex with additional information on planned COVID-19 expenditures and how this correlates with the fall economic statement for 2020, including all of the authorities together in one easy access panel for GC InfoBase.
Reporting on actual government expenditures is typically done through three means: on a monthly basis through the Department of Finance's “Fiscal Monitor”, on a quarterly basis in the quarterly financial reports by departments, and annually through the annual financial report in the public accounts, supported by departmental results reports.
Given the extraordinary context of the pandemic, TBS reached out to the organizations to gather spending data related to COVID-19 on a monthly basis.
The committee's motion on March 10 asked TBS to provide all monthly COVID-19 expenditure reports and spending data from departments.
At TBS our focus is primarily on COVID-19 spending that falls within planned authorities as outlined in the estimates. The ability to effectively track COVID-19 expenditures varies greatly by measure and by organization, and these amounts are estimates that have not been audited.
As of January 31, 2021, federal organizations reported total estimated expenditures of $123.1 billion for the measures announced in the government's COVID-19 economic response plan to fall within the planned authorities presented in the estimates.
In that same time frame, departments and agencies are also reporting additional estimated expenditures of $2.4 billion related to COVID-19 measures, including salaries and overtime for additional hires, and employees reassigned to support COVID-19 initiatives and operational expenditures, including the acquisition of personal protective equipment and supplies.
For the most part, these estimated expenditures are against existing funding in departmental reference levels that have been redirected to address COVID-19 activities.
Importantly, they only include the cash payments that have been made to suppliers for goods and services or for grants and contributions to recipients. They do not represent the implementation status or results achieved from measures, and organizations are responsible for determining how best to identify the appropriate estimated expenditures and are best placed to provide explanations of the amounts and corresponding activities.
The final expenditures for the 2020-21 fiscal year will be reported in the public accounts, which are expected to be tabled in the fall. The purpose in presenting these estimated expenditures by measure and on a consolidated year-to-date basis is to enable members to compare them with the spending authorities listed on GC InfoBase. It also allows members to compare announced measures as part of the fall economic statement in 2020.
The format provides the information by organization to enable parliamentarians to ask questions and seek explanations from organizations responsible for delivering these measures.
As per the committee's request, we will be reporting on a monthly basis going forward. In line with the comptroller general's covering note that accompanied the department's response to the motion, we welcome this opportunity to discuss the feedback on the content and the format of the reports going forward.
With that, we're very pleased to hear the views of committee members.
Thank you.
:
Right. I just want to read it into the record. It says very clearly the following:
The worldwide situation related to [COVID] is evolving rapidly, and in light of this, the Office of the Comptroller General was asked to initiate...new reporting requirement[s] to capture associated expenditure costs.
This reporting requirement is effective for this fiscal year 2019-20 and into 2020-21...critical to understand the whole of government costs related to the response to COVID-19.
Now, attached to that also came an Excel file, which was sent out to every department breaking down incremental [Technical difficulty—Editor] operations, purchases, travel, grants and contributions.
It was pretty clear that this was the information we were looking for. The comptroller general has been receiving that. Your department has been receiving that every single month since March 2020. Why was it that this committee was not provided with that [Technical difficulty—Editor]?
:
Let me just interrupt you there. You talk about transparency. It's very clear your department has this information that we requested. It doesn't take a lot of information. Your department has that information. This committee asked for it, and yet you decided, for usefulness, to give us only top-line numbers not broken down.
That is not at all useful for this committee or for parliamentarians, and neither is it transparent. This information is available. I actually referenced it in my motion and when we discussed this in committee, and yet you decided not to present that to committee.
Further, you're saying, well, a month from now we'll start providing that. You have this information. We've asked for it. Why will you not provide it to this committee, to parliamentarians and to Canadians to see the detailed spending?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Purves, for your testimony. Thank you for turning [Technical difficulty—Editor] time for this committee and for your offer as well of working with this committee to tailor the information that is presented before us. I really do appreciate that collaboration and co-operation on your part.
In your statement you mentioned that government expenditures are published through the [Technical difficulty—Editor] the annual financial reports and public accounts.
Could you explain how else parliamentarians and Canadians can “follow the money” on these measures, and where else, in addition, is this financial data reported?
:
With respect to how the government reports financially, as I said, there is the “Fiscal Monitor” that's done on a monthly basis. There are the quarterly financial reports. There are also the end-of-year public accounts.
In framing the response to your question, I think it's important to note that we don't normally receive or tag spending authorities by department. It's done by vote and by program.
In March 2020, the Public Health Events of National Concern Payments Act, which Parliament approved, provided the immediate spending authority to address the pandemic. This was new for us. As a system, we [Technical difficulty—Editor] to ensure back office tracking of spending for this pandemic triaging. This was something we started, as Mr. McCauley noted, back in March 2020. [Technical difficulty—Editor] spending. Mr. McCauley did note the different areas that we were looking at—salaries, overtime and so forth [Technical difficulty—Editor] by event. I think this is important to note.
We wanted to ensure that spending data was available to us, not only from the standpoint of understanding the expenditure momentum as it pertained to COVID spending, but also as it pertained to how it would feed into eventual reporting as pertaining to data—departmental results reports at the end of the year, and any sort of questions parliamentarians might have regarding the spending authorities that were initiated. We also knew that parliamentarians would have questions about what the pace of that spending would be. We wanted to ensure that the system was prepared to address that at its earliest convenience.
:
That's correct. Our collection of this through the CFO community, working with departments, has been an ongoing effort.
We started doing it through Excel, but we moved into our system of Titan, which allowed for a more efficient data collection exercise starting in September.
I think, consistent with other processes around government, certainly in terms of data collection and our efforts to work with the CFO community to be able to [Technical difficulty—Editor] together on a regular, standardized basis, it has been one of innovation and a lot of effort across the board.
I have a specific question for you. In the table, under Finance, I see $12 billion for the safe restart agreement. The federal government is stepping forward to help the provinces with their responsibilities, like supporting cities and municipalities, keeping transit going, protecting schools and children, and rolling out vaccines. My own community of Windsor-Essex, in Windsor—Tecumseh, received $26 million from the federal government from this fund.
Can you explain to me why I see an additional $2 billion for the safe restart agreement under PHAC as well? I see it under Finance, but I also see a portion under PHAC, so if you could, just explain to me [Technical difficulty—Editor] presented in that manner.
In terms of the $2.4 billion and the flexibility for departments to determine their approach towards what they're capturing above and beyond the measures, what this really comes down to is time. For example, when we are tracking the expenditures of time, for my time in a policy centre supporting COVID, I would be putting an estimate of how much in a given week or month I put towards that.
We provided high-level guidance in the package that Mr. McCauley was referring to, with some questions and answers. We provided detailed explanations of what each of those categories was. Whether [Technical difficulty—Editor] 20% and whether or not there's a threshold, we recommended that 50% of a person's time was left up to the departments, to a certain extent.
In terms of the expenditures related to the measures that Mr. Purves was talking about, that would be pulled.... The departments would be looking at what they had actually spent on those specific measures.
Mr. Purves, the information that we are currently obtaining in response to our questions casts even more doubts on the transparency. Two factors could explain that: either you do not have the organizational capacity to provide the information, or you do not want to provide the information. Along those lines, we know that a number of contracts have remained secret from the outset, and that is still the case today.
If information is not provided, or is sent out in dribs and dabs, is it because of a directive to hide information, or is it incompetence?
Those are the two possible reasons; there can't be 40 of them.
:
I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Purves, but are departments hiding information from you? You should have access to everything. If you ask for information, people are required to give it to you.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer also mentioned in his report that he did not understand the situation. In his opinion, access to information really seems to be a problem.
Let me repeat, to us, it looks like people want to hide information. Is that to cover up possible corruption? We don't know. That is why we are asking questions. We are not making accusations, but we expect to receive all the details, because anything else gives rise to major doubt.
Since I do not have a lot of time, I will move to my next question.
I have a specific question about the $159 billion in expenditures for COVID-19 support measures. That is of particular interest to us. I would like to know what part of that amount went directly to vaccines and rapid tests.
:
I'd be happy to answer that question, Mr. Chair.
In the context of how we manage spending authorities for our estimates, documents for supplementary estimates [Technical difficulty—Editor] primarily in the realm of appropriation-dependent organizations.
I'll give you an example. The Department of National Defence has their vote 1 in operating and they draw funds with the authority of Parliament from the consolidated revenue fund. That's within our scope, okay, but if it's a situation where a department has statutory authority to draw funds and to make transfers, either from the Income Tax Act or the EI Act, and to draw from the EI operating account and so forth—something that is beyond the scope of an appropriation-dependent department—those programs are effectively out of scope in terms of what we focus on in the estimates. Our intent has always been to be able to collect the information that is best within our swim lanes. That is the bulk of what we would call the “direct support measures” under the economic response plan for COVID-19.
When we put out our report, we were able to follow the same measures that the [Technical difficulty—Editor] and are the same measures that are in the estimates. People can actually take a measure and compare it with the spending authorities that a department has received in order to spend, and they can compare it with what was approved and set out in the fiscal plan in the fall economic statement. When I talk about financial transparency, literacy, comprehension and utility, it's really ensuring that parliamentarians are able to have that mapped back. That's what we can control.
[Technical difficulty—Editor ] amount of engagement, and these are incremental authorities that have been provided over the years. In addition to that, the effort to provide a sense, a line of sight as to [Technical difficulty—Editor] spending that had been redirected to be able to address COVID-19, is something that is separate and distinct. We're still trying to collect that information on a monthly basis. Again, we would be happy to provide the disaggregated data for both the measures but also that collective effort. We would be able to provide this to this committee.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I must point out that the connection continues to be poor. Unfortunately, I have never heard the interpreters mention so frequently that the speech is inaudible and the connection is too poor. I feel bad for them. Their work must certainly not be easy.
In the briefing note that we received so that we could prepare for this meeting, I was looking at the various expenditures and I saw that the National Capital Commission had received the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance.
From which organizations does the National Capital Commission rent space, thereby allowing it to ask for that assistance?
I'll move on to Titan. Back on January 13 of 2021, the federal government published a guideline entitled “Titan Guidance—COVID-19 Expenditures”. This guideline is telling the departments, I assume, how to use the Titan system and what information goes into it.
We also have another system, GC InfoBase, which presents the information around spending authorities. You've often drawn a distinction between spending authorities and expenditure. For those who may not be familiar with Titan and GC InfoBase, can you shed some light on which system is used for what?
:
Thank you, Mr. Jowhari.
That ends our questions for today.
I want to thank Mr. Ermuth and Mr. Purves for bearing with us during the the technical difficulties we had in the first part of the meeting. I appreciate your sticking with us.
This ends the public portion of our meeting. We will go in camera.
Members of the committee, you will have to exit and then re-enter again for the in-camera portion. You had the information and contact numbers sent to you. We will see you in a couple of minutes.
With that said, we will suspend the meeting.
[Proceedings continue in camera]