:
I call the meeting to order.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome, everyone, to the 63rd meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. We're convened today to examine the very same thing, the supplementary estimates (B).
We have witnesses today who are no strangers to this committee and are always very welcome.
We have Mr. Alister Smith, the associate secretary from the Treasury Board Secretariat; Mr. Bill Matthews, a regular and frequent guest, who is the assistant secretary, expenditure management sector; Ms. Sally Thornton, the executive director, expenditure operations and estimates; and Christine Walker, assistant secretary and chief financial officer of corporate services.
I understand there will be some opening remarks, and then we'll open it to questions from the committee members.
Mr. Smith, will that be you?
I'm pleased to be here to discuss the supplementary estimates (B) for 2012–13 for the government and for the Treasury Board Secretariat.
[Translation]
With me today from the secretariat are Bill Matthews, Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management, Sally Thornton, Executive Director, Expenditure Management and Christine Walker, Assistant Secretary, Corporate Services.
We are here to respond to your questions on these supplementary estimates. I would first like to focus on the highlights of the supplementary estimates (B) for the government as a whole.
[English]
These supplementary estimates, which inform Parliament about the government's spending requirements, are the smallest supplementary estimates (B) of the past three years.
The 2012–13 supplementary estimates (B) provide information in support of the government's request for Parliament to approve $2.5 billion in spending for 63 organizations. This amount includes planned expenditures for which spending authority has not yet been sought from Parliament.
The supplementary estimates (B) include a number of measures from Budget 2012. For example, there is $162 million to continue to support the implementation of the first nations water and waste water action plan; $91.4 million for the industrial research assistance program, which supports research and development by small and medium-sized firms; and $75 million for the community infrastructure improvement fund.
The major items in these estimates include $242 million for the RCMP. This funding relates to new agreements with eight provinces, three territories, and approximately 150 municipalities. These agreements came into force in April 2012. These services are offered on a cost recovery basis for periods of up to 20 years.
There is $226 million for the Department of Health to provide supplementary health benefits under the non-insured health benefits program for eligible first nations and Inuit. This funding is to cover costs for existing clients of the non-insured health benefits program as well as the addition of new clients.
There is $206 million for the Department of National Defence to help comply with the Federal Court decision regarding the Canadian Forces service income security plan long-term disability benefits—the Manuge class action lawsuit, in short.
There is $184 million for Agriculture and Agri-food Canada for costs related to the transition of the Canadian Wheat Board to a voluntary grain marketing organization.
There is $181 million for Health Canada and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada for mental health and emotional support services, and for the continued implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
While changes in statutory forecasts are not included in appropriation bills, these estimates do provide information on major changes to statutory items. Key items from the Department of Finance include $733 million for payments to the Province of Quebec for the harmonization of the Quebec sales tax with the goods and services tax, $680 million for additional fiscal equalization payments to prevent declines in major transfers to provinces, and a $1.2 billion decrease in forecast interest on unmatured debt. Unmatured debt comprises outstanding bonds, treasury bills, and other debt instruments.
These supplementary estimates (B) reflect reductions of approximately $483 million from the review of spending in 40 organizations reported in Budget 2012. Where appropriate, departmental funding requests have been offset by these savings, reducing the overall size of the appropriations requested.
I will now turn to TBS-specific supplementary estimates (B).
[Translation]
Let me also comment on the supplementary estimates (B) for the Treasury Board Secretariat.
The department is seeking authority for $81.6 million through these estimates.
[English]
This is the result of an increase of $83.1 million requested for vote 15, the central vote for compensation adjustments, and a decrease of $1.5 million to vote 1, which is Treasury Board Secretariat's own departmental program expenditures.
Vote 15, compensation adjustments, is a government-wide vote that supplements the appropriations of departments and agencies for certain employee allowances that are time-limited in nature.
The amount of $83.1 million relates principally to payments to support recruitment and retention for the architecture, engineering, and health sciences groups that have been in place for a number of years. These funds will be transferred to departments and agencies on the approval of supply.
The decrease of $1.5 million in departmental program expenditures is largely due to some offsetting factors: an increase of $1.9 million resulting from the reprofiling of human resources modernization funding, an increase of $0.6 million resulting from a transfer to the Treasury Board Secretariat from four regional development agencies for the provision of internal audit services by the Office of the Comptroller General, an increase of $14,000 resulting from the transfer to the Treasury Board Secretariat from the Public Service Commission for the national managers' community, a decrease of $2.1 million resulting from a transfer from the Treasury Board Secretariat to the Privy Council Office for the Regulatory Cooperation Council, and a decrease of $1.9 million related to the savings from the review of spending, which is used to offset the reprofile of human resources modernization funding.
[Translation]
In total, the items presented in the supplementary estimates (B) represent an increase to the Treasury Board Secretariat authorities totalling $81.6 million, which is appreciably lower than originally anticipated.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my preliminary remarks.
[English]
My colleagues and I would now be pleased to address any questions the committee may have on these estimates.
Thank you very much for attending today.
We've carefully gone through the supplementary estimates (B) in comparison with the main estimates, and I have a couple of questions to ask.
I will admit that I'm a neophyte to this. Given the minimal information provided for us in the supplementary estimates, I was delving down and asking many questions before I came here to try to figure out exactly what money is being spent for what.
It is of course our responsibility constitutionally, as members of Parliament, to scrutinize spending. One of the big issues before Parliament right now is the cuts to the civil service, the decision of the government to achieve cutting the deficit by cutting 19,000 civil servants. The minister has announced, previously in the media and now in the House, that he has reached a little bit more than half that target. Our job is to try to scrutinize and match up how we're supposedly going to have savings through cutting civil servants, and in cutting civil servants, exactly what savings have been achieved.
My question to you would be this. We see no change in vote 30a and we do see an $83 million change in...is it vote 20? It's $83 million.
Given that you have targeted these amounts and given that the minister has stated publicly that he's met half of his target, can you provide us today with the details of the removal of the staff from the government and the details of which of the three options they've opted for? There are obviously different cash figures based on which one they opt for, and they appear at a different point in time.
I know that the PBO and the union have experienced our same frustration in trying to actually match up the forecast cuts with the dollar figure in exactly when they're occurring, so my question is this: as there are no changes in the supplementary estimates (B) on this major figure, are we to assume, as members of Parliament, that this represents all 19,000 cuts in the civil service? Does it only represent some of them? Do we know if all the cuts are going to be made by the end of this fiscal year?
:
Thank you very much. I'll start and then I'll turn to my colleague Mr. Matthews.
The reductions in funding are taken over time in the reference levels of departments. They will show up in departmental funds over the three-year period.
When we come in for supplementary estimates, we are looking at requests for new funding for new budget initiatives, for example, some of which may be offset by fiscal reductions in the short run. We can talk about those offsets very shortly.
The job numbers that have been announced are consistent with the financial reductions over time, but it's a three-year program. What these current job figures show is that we're well on track—and perhaps a little bit ahead—in making the reductions in positions that were anticipated in Budget 2012.
I'll turn to my colleague Mr. Matthews for further detail.
To build on that, Mr. Smith mentioned that it is a three-year profile. In the way this profile ramps up over time in terms of savings, the ultimate savings are $5.2 billion. Budget 2012 forecast $1.5 billion in the current year, $3.1 billion in the second, up to $5.1 billion in the third, and $5.2 billion ongoing. That's the buildup. It is a three-year period.
In supplementary estimates (B), we come to Parliament with an appropriation act when we need to increase what departments are going to spend. It's an “up to” amount; we don't come to Parliament to reduce an appropriation amount. When you think about why you're not seeing some of these reductions in the supplementary estimates (B), it's that we only come here if there's an increase.
The member mentioned two votes in particular. The reason we're coming for one of those votes is that we have terminable allowances, which are allowances paid to employees for things such as recruitment and retention that are being transferred into departmental reference levels.
It's an unfortunate name, “terminable allowances”. It has nothing to do with termination. It's actually a supplement to encourage retention and recruitment in job categories in which we have some issues.
That's why we're here and why you're seeing an increase in that number. It has nothing to do with the actual reductions that were spoken about in the House.
One final point is that you asked a question about the various categories of employees who had been affected by the reductions. There are three categories, as the member mentioned.
I'm going from memory, but of the roughly 2,200 people who have been impacted and have taken those options, my recollection is that 1,500 have gone for transitional support or education allowance; the other 700 have elected to wait for the year and be on surplus status.
That's the rough breakdown of what we've seen so far. These numbers will be updated as we go through this process. It is a three-year process.
:
Are you referring to the transfer of $2.1 million from the Treasury Board Secretariat to PCO for the Regulatory Cooperation Council?
Mr. Jacques Gourde: Yes.
Ms. Christine Walker: Okay.
The Regulatory Cooperation Council was established by the in February of 2011. Originally it was placed in the Treasury Board, because of the strong alignment between the Regulatory Cooperation Council and the Red Tape Reduction Commission, which was housed in the Treasury Board.
Around March 31, 2012, the Red Tape Reduction Commission finished and wrapped up. Subsequently, in July, the announced that the Regulatory Cooperation Council would transfer from the Treasury Board to PCO. The total original amount of the budget for the RCC was $4 million, so the balance of $2.1 million will be spent under PCO.
:
I'll make a couple of my comments and then turn to my colleague for a more detailed explanation.
What you have in this document is the money that will be spent this fiscal year, and we do reference back to previous supplementary estimates. Also in these supplementary estimates (B) are the funds that are being requested to be spent this year, with specific allocations.
On the other document that is being referred to, there is a central government advertising reserve. When there are funds allocated, which could be for multiple years to certain advertising programs, it is made public what has been allocated from that central amount. What you see here is what will be spent in the current year. That other document that was referred to is actually a more longer-term view about what has been allocated from the centre.
The third piece that I'll add before I turn to my colleague is that departments can also spend money on advertising from their existing reference levels, so this is just a horizontal piece for advertising that has been requested in these supplementary estimates, and there are two major items.
I'll turn to my colleague for additional comments.
:
If I may, I'll elaborate, because it's very confusing. There are always different numbers being presented on advertising and picked up in the media from supplementary estimates and the annual report.
Basically, as Mr. Matthews said, there are two fundamental ways to fund advertising. One is through the government advertising plan, and that is reviewed by cabinet annually to address new government priorities each fiscal year. You see those in-year requests through supplementary estimates. Departments and agencies prepare proposals for review for Privy Council. They're challenged, and they're approved at that level. Then submissions go to the board. The board approves them, and they ultimately get reflected in your estimates process.
The second route is that departments can fund some advertising from their internal reference levels. You often see that in the reports on plans and priorities.
Where do you see the bigger picture as opposed to just what's in-year? Treasury Board Secretariat posts on its website a quarterly posting of all the things that have gone to the board that have been approved. Those would be any of the advertising initiatives pursuant to the government advertising plan that have the policy approval and have gone through the submission challenge process. They're posted there quarterly as they are approved and also for multi-year. As a result, the numbers on that posting are different from what you see here, because you're only seeing this year's spending in the supplementary estimates.
On the quarterly, you will see decisions made last year that have implications for this year as well. We also show when something has been taken away, so there are reductions as well.
If you want to know everything with regard to advertising, the best place is Public Works. They do a regular annual report that captures all of the government advertising.
My thanks to the witnesses for being here.
As my colleague said, what is in the supplementary estimates is interesting, but what is not there is also very interesting. For example, the fact that vote 30 has not increased means that your forecasts were quite accurate. So congratulations for that accuracy.
I would like to clarify one thing. Of course, the quarterly reports let us follow things step by step. Most of the budget cuts come from letting people go, of course, which is being done in a number of ways. Some employees are going to retire, others will be entitled to severance pay, others will change careers.
I would like to know one thing, right here, right now. We have asked for this several times now and, each time, we have been told that we will get the figures later. You are the central agency; you are in charge, as Minister Clement said yesterday in the House. I would like to know how many jobs have been eliminated to date and how the cuts are distributed.
:
There are a series of questions there. I'll start, then I'll turn to my colleagues to provide more information.
We do have an idea, as I mentioned, that we are on track, not ahead of schedule, in the reduction of positions. Now, there is attrition—that is, people in an aging workforce are leaving the public service. You have to take that into account as well as the impacts of these reviews.
As mentioned, and I won't get into repeating this in detail, we won't be able to get great precision on who is where until the process of the workforce adjustment has worked its way through the system.
That said, we have provided information on where the reductions will be, by portfolio, over the three years, and some estimate of those that are a direct result of the spending review.
I think we have provided a fair amount of information. We do track this closely. There will be changes along the way, and we will have to pick up those changes and report them.
I should also mention that we have not frozen hiring. There will always be a need for new hires in the public service, even while other people are leaving, because there are always shortages in certain areas.
Let me turn to my colleagues.
:
Maybe I'll give a bit of additional context, Mr. Chair. There are roughly 135 organizations that could come in for funding. As already had been mentioned, this is a subset.
Supplementary estimates (B), or our fall supplementary estimates, are traditionally the biggest of the three supplementary estimates, just because of the time of year. It does give departments some time to deal with any budget funding they might want to deal with, but departments are not obligated to come in. Departments only come in for funding if they have been to Treasury Board to get a new program or additional funds approved. There's no obligation on departments, but supplementary estimates (B) are the largest of the three, typically.
If you're curious about how it relates to previous authorities at this stage of the year, on the voted front, as was already mentioned, we're at about $2.5 billion in supplementary estimates (B) this year. We're down over the previous year's roughly $2 billion at this time of year. If you go back two years to 2010-11, we're at about $8 billion less. We're about even with the 2009-10 numbers, just to give you some perspective of where that is. On the statutory front, we are at slightly less than the last couple of years.
However, there's no obligation for departments to come in. Of this 135, we have a subset, but traditionally this is the largest of the supplementary estimates.
:
Thank you for that clarification.
Additional major items, as you mentioned, are just over $91 million for IRAP, the industrial research assistance, where we're investing in innovation. There's also first nations drinking water. Another one that's very important—I spent nine years in local government—is that we continue to invest in community infrastructure, with $75 million.
On page 11 of the supplementary estimates, the Office of Infrastructure of Canada request is for $122 million “to meet the government's commitments to the Gas Tax Fund to support environmentally sustainable municipal infrastructure projects that contribute to cleaner air, cleaner water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions”, which I know is very important to my community of Kelowna—Lake Country.
I spent nine years in local government working with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We struggled and were able to ascertain that the ongoing $2 billion commitment for gas tax was enshrined in budget. Could you clarify that this is money that ensures the $2 billion is then reprofiled for 2012-13 going forward?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll say a couple of things on that question, because it's more complicated than it sounds.
Parliament votes, as we know, by capital and operating and grants and contributions, in most cases, so when we bring supplementary estimates forward, if there's additional funding being requested and we have some money available that basically they're unable to spend, we do an offset. Those are the offsets that are referred to in the question. In these supplementary estimates, you will find roughly $485 million in offsets because of Budget 2012.
The question then turns to which program activities have been reduced as a result of Budget 2012. We don't have that information in these supplementary estimates, because that's not how Parliament votes, but each department, I believe, has now posted on their website a breakdown by program activity of what's been reduced. It's not here, but it is on each department's website. I believe if you go to the Treasury Board Secretariat website, you can see a consolidated link of all those reductions.
:
Let me start, and then I'll turn to Christine.
We have indeed been working on streamlining our internal processes and making efficiencies in a number of areas, including the expenditure management sector and corporate services, which Christine represents.
One example of a streamlined process, I think, is a common human resources business process, which we've implemented and are implementing across government. Under this, we effectively streamline staffing, classification, and whole other areas of HR. We are applying this across government. We are, of course, eating our own cooking and applying it within Treasury Board as well.
Christine, you may want to add something.
:
That's six minutes, Mike.
Mr. Mike Wallace: Thank you.
The Chair: That does conclude our first round, but I think Mr. Wallace's line of questioning is a good graphic illustration of the complexity and of the degree of difficulty that ordinary members of Parliament might have. Not all of us are as well versed as Mr. Wallace is, frankly, and he's made it a hobby of his, almost—
Voices: Oh, oh!
The Chair: —to try to figure out the estimates.
I have one question before we go to the second round.
It seems by virtue of these estimates that marketing freedom for farmers is not quite as free as we might have expected. There's a budget line in here for the Canadian Wheat Board, with a couple of hundred million dollars for the Canadian Wheat Board.
I'm the critic for the Canadian Wheat Board, and it's in my riding. I know that it hardly exists anymore, right? It has been essentially eliminated. What are we spending on for the Canadian Wheat Board that is no longer there?
:
In terms of an overall payroll package, the a salary for a departmental employee is in the department's existing reference levels.
We have certain examples of cases in which we didn't want to permanently increase departmental salaries for a given occupation group, but we recognized there were recruitment and retention issues. Doctors and nurses are a great example. They have allowances that we manage centrally, because the money for those is not put into departmental reference levels because it's not yet part of the employee's salary.
The goal of those allowances is to be temporary in nature. If we get to a point where the allowance has been temporary for a number of years, we say, “You know what? Maybe we should roll this into their salary”, and at that point we transfer the money to the departments.
This is basically compensating departments for those employees who receive these allowances, which are generally related to recruitment and retention and therefore are not part of their base funding. They're still managed in the central reserve, and we basically allocate out to departments.
I mentioned that the engineering and architects group was a big part of this one, as is the health services group, which is doctors and nurses. They're the two major components here.
:
Regarding the actual list of terminable allowances that are contained in these estimates, I've mentioned the two big ones, but I can run through the major groups and tell you the number of people, if that's worth doing.
In the architecture, engineering, and land survey group, there are 3,600 employees. The research group has 834. Health services, which I've mentioned already—that's the doctors and nurses group—has 2,323. We have a fourth group, applied science and patent examination, with about 600 employees in it. We have a technical services group, which has about 900 employees, and the university teaching group, which has 200.
Those are the ones with allowances that are impacting these supplementary estimates (B).
As I mentioned, sometimes if there are allowances that have been temporary for a number of years but are still needed, we formally put them into an occupational group salary level, but that's part of the collective bargaining process, so I can't really comment on changes there.
I know you are doing your best to respond to the questions that I and my colleague have been asking about the specifics of dollars saved by the cuts to the civil service. I mean, it is clearly the mandate of the Treasury Board—it's right in the statute—to deal with estimates, expenditures, reviews of annual long-term expenditures, and human resources management, and the decision has been made of a certain percentage across the board in cuts. The one thing the Treasury Board appears to have voluntarily decided is that they have delegated away their mandate to track, overall, the dollar figures with the cuts. Given that we don't seem to be getting....
I will ask the question once more. The minister has stated publicly that he has already achieved a little bit more than half of his target in the cuts toward the deficit. Therefore, one presumes he knows the dollar figure that all those cuts represent. I guess the logical question for us....
It's our duty. It's why our committee was established—to monitor spending and to review the estimates in detail. Given the timeline for the review of estimates and the tabling back in the House, we don't have the luxury of bringing in every department and agency to ask them individually about where they have made the cuts and what the dollar figure is.
I am going to ask once more: can you at least give us the detailed breakdown where in fact, clearly, if the minister says those cuts have been made, the decision must have been made? Those employees must have opted for one, two, or three, and therefore you should know what those dollar figures are. Can you provide those to us? At least for the employees, presumably if half the cuts have been made, they have opted.
:
Let me try again, because maybe we are just misunderstanding the question.
As a result of the spending reviews, departmental budgets have been reduced, and reduced in future, so their reference levels have already been reduced. Next year's reference level will be reduced by a certain amount, and year three as well. They have correspondingly made plans to reduce the number of positions in the department.
Employees are informed that they're affected. Some will end up losing their jobs. They have certain options available to them. We're going through that process now under workforce adjustment, which is collectively bargained and which respects the rights of individuals to make certain choices.
As we go through that process and people opt, we will see exactly what categories people fall into. Some may decide to stay in the public service for a year on surplus to try to find another job. Others may decide to leave with a transition allowance. Some may go back to university or community college.
:
I think the motion is in order, given that you don't need to serve notice when it is subject matter that we're currently dealing with.
There is a motion on the floor that the minister be called to the committee.
You should know, as well, that the minister was invited to be here today. He was invited on September 25, or at the end of September; he was invited two months ago. He notified us that he was unable to attend.
The committee has dealt with the estimates four times in this Parliament. Twice the minister came, once for supplementary estimates (B) for 2011-12 and once for supplementary estimates (C) for 2011-12. He did not attend for supplementary estimates (A) for 2012-13 or for supplementary estimates (B) today.
There is a motion on the floor. It's in order.
All those in favour of calling the minister to attend to defend supplementary estimates (B)?
(Motion negatived)
The Chair: The motion does not succeed.
You have about a minute left, Linda, if you would like to continue.
I think there was perhaps a lack of clarity in my question the last time. When I was talking about cuts in program sub-activities, I meant to be referring to Treasury Board itself, and not to the whole of government.
I notice from your website that you do show expenditure reductions for five very broad frameworks or policy areas: management framework, people framework, expenditure management, financial management, and internal services. If one wants to do a meaningful analysis of where the expenditure reductions have come, this doesn't really get us anywhere, because it's so broad as to be virtually meaningless in terms of any kind of analysis.
My question to you is whether you can provide us with information at a more disaggregated level by sub-activity. Can you take each of those five areas and break them down into smaller chunks so that we can better understand what is going on?
I have just a few more questions. Again, a few of them are process-related, in a sense, with the numbers we have here.
This is not your department but another department whose estimates I was looking at. There's an explanation of funds, and it's under a vote 5—it doesn't matter which department—and there's $1.6 million in authorities available. There's a little over $1 million through that vote, within the vote, and then $500,000 within another vote, due to savings identified as part of the budget.
If I understand that correctly, the department had made an estimate on how much they were going to spend on a certain item. They did not spend it. Now they're asking, through this, to transfer it to something else that they're going to spend it on. Therefore, it's not really savings, in the end; they're spending it anyways.
Am I not reading that correctly?
I have one other technical question, then. From your plans and priorities for this year, you have the planning summary table, you have forecast spending, and then planned spending for the next three years in advance—2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15. On the summary, under “Government-wide Funds and Public Service Employer Payments”, it's $4.1 billion—that's the number—for 2011-12, and then this year, 2012-13, it goes to $5.4 billion.
Why is there such a change? Do we know?
In my previous comments, I tried to get you to be specific about the number of people who have lost their jobs up to now. Really, I have not got an answer. The minister has stated that he was satisfied, given the targets he wanted to meet. I respect the minister. I believe that, if he says that, it is surely because he has information that allows him to do so. You mentioned the quarterly reports, which give us an idea about things. So, every quarter, could you provide data on the process of job cutting, with figures showing the retirements, the surplus positions, the reassignments, the voluntary departures, the unfilled positions and the savings achieved as a result of it all, for all departments? You are the central department; you are in charge. So, at very least, you should be able to keep track of all this. I would like to have that information quarterly.
A lot of jobs have been eliminated, but it is all very vague. We do not yet know all the consequences of the cuts. Corrections will certainly have to be made. There is a human resources director in the Treasury Board. Could you tell me whether she has the mandate to assess the effects of the cuts?
:
Excuse me, but if the minister states that we are on track, he has to be basing that statement on something. I respect the minister too much to think that he is picking the statement out of thin air. He is relying on a report, on facts. So can we have a summary of what he based himself on when he made the statement. That is what I am asking.
I do not see why a central agency which issues orders about budget cuts does not look for quick feedback on the effects those orders are having.
I am asking for an overview, not a detailed picture. If you want to tell us about the effect of the cuts in a more general way than I was able to pick out the information, I have no problem with that. You can tell us how many people have retired, how many people have left, and so on, and then give us the total. I would be satisfied with that information. I do not want anything extremely detailed.
I just want some figures added up, with the total in dollars, so that I can see where we are. We have been doing a program review for four years already and we are having a hard time getting an overall picture of things. Now an order has been issued about reducing the number of employees in the public service and we want to know what it means.
You have to remember that the name of our committee also includes the words “government operations”. So basically, we want to know the effect on government operations. That is why we want the overall picture to start with. We cannot do our job if we do not know how many positions have been eliminated, whether that is just because of retirements, or whether we are talking about positions and programs. I do not even want to go that far. I am just asking you for an overall picture.
I'm going to follow up a little bit on what was just said.
The question that was asked, Mr. Chair, was just answered, I think, for the third time today: the information that the minister brought to the House in terms of the number of cuts was based on the information Mr. Matthews just presented.
If you really want to know the numbers, you go to the departmental performance reports. This one is for last year; you'll have to go to next year's. I happen to have Treasury Board's here for 2011-12. There's a line item that says “2011-12 human resources”, “planned”, “actual”, and then the difference. It shows what was planned and what the actual was, and in this case they were down 95.
There's nothing to hide. It's a public document. It's on the website, and I printed it off the website, actually. People don't like me to print things, but I like it printed instead of just sitting with the screen.
There's no secret about that information. Mr. Matthews just said what it was. It's available in the documents, and it will continue to be available in the documents.
On the same line of questioning, I'll go back to plans and priorities. I like the report on plans and priorities because it talks about the program activity—and I know we're going to get to a little more of that in the future—and tells why it is a priority underlying something. In actual fact, the chair asked a question about open government.
I probably should have provided this question in advance. With regard to having a set of priorities, I know Treasury Board is a little different from other departments. It's an internal support system for the running of government; it's not necessarily programs to outside constituents. It's the constituency of government inside.
When you say that developing a comprehensive approach to compensation is one of the priorities, I don't know what that means. We probably, in my view, should have a meeting just on the plans and priorities document so that we can have a discussion and not wait until the estimates and do it at that time. We may be able to do it with a new change in the program review, and the things we're looking at.
You have listed plans for meeting priorities. What does that mean to you as an organization, and what does it mean to us? I'll use that as an example.