Hon. Larry W. Smith: Honourable senators, I rise in my capacity as critic to speak to Bill C-15, An Act for granting to Her Majesty certain sums of money for the federal public administration for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2022.

Bill C-15 puts into legislation $13.2 billion for the federal public administration as sought out through the Supplementary Estimates (C) 2021-22. This funding is requested by federal departments and agencies due, in part, to changes in budgetary needs not covered in any other supply bills.

I would first like to commend the work of our colleagues on the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance, who had the near-impossible task of reviewing the estimates documents, sifting through a 200-page document — line item after line item — and questioning departments and agencies concerning the additional authorities being requested. It is, indeed, nearly an impossible task, as the committee held just two meetings and heard from 26 witnesses as part of their revision process for the Supplementary Estimates (C) 2021-22.

Colleagues, while this sort of exercise seems to have become a common occurrence in this place over the last few years, it is nonetheless extremely concerning. We, as parliamentarians, are not being given enough time to provide effective oversight of government spending on behalf of Canadians. We are being asked, in a very narrow window of time, to approve over $13 billion in funding for federal departments, many of which continue to fail to meet their departmental planned targets. Other departments simply fail to report results with respect to various performance indicators.

All estimates documents include a section on the Departmental Plans, DPs, and the Departmental Results Reports, DRRs. The DPs lay out plans for the year for each department and agency, while the DRRs report on the performance of the plans. On paper, this is both useful for us parliamentarians in our oversight work but also for Canadians who are funding the administration of the federal public service.

The problem, however, is that Parliament does not set mandatory deadlines for the tabling of these plans and reports. That means parliamentarians could be asked to approve new funding before reviewing the DRRs, the results for the previous year. This is exactly the case for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2021. The DRRs for the 2020-21 fiscal year were submitted in February 2022, a full 10 months after March 31, 2021. This meant that all new government spending, beginning with the Main Estimates 2021-22, had to be considered without any information regarding the performance of each organization in the previous fiscal year.

To reiterate the importance of having the DRRs, here is the scenario before us right now: Later today, we will be asked to approve $75 billion in appropriations for the federal public administration as part of Bill C-16 for the 2022-23 fiscal year. However, we have absolutely no information on how departments performed in 2021-22 since the DRRs for the 2021-22 fiscal year are not yet submitted and likely will not be until well after the additional appropriations have been approved by Parliament.

If that doesn’t confuse you, what will?

In addition to this critical misalignment of priorities, federal departments are failing to meet their targets or are not reporting on them altogether. According to data published by the federal government, departments failed to meet 31% of the government’s performance indicators, while 16% did not report results for the most recent fiscal year.

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces, for example, failed to meet 46 targets, accounting for just over 37% of overall performance indicators, in the 2020-21 fiscal year. Moreover, the department did not provide results on 16 targets. Some of the performance indicators where the department failed to execute include the percentage of aerospace fleets that are serviceable to meet training and readiness requirements and the percentage of projects that meet the approved project development and approval timelines — low‑risk, low-complexity projects. Other performance indicators where the department failed to report results included joint force effectiveness in providing near real-time support to operations and senior decision makers.

While we are entering into an important era of global insecurity, one where countries are re-evaluating their defence policies and bolstering their military capabilities, it is imperative we have up-to-date, complete and relevant information from departments like National Defence so we, as parliamentarians, can effectively carry out our roles in reviewing spending decisions.

Honourable senators, furthermore, I would like to highlight an issue of poor planning within the federal administration, a recent trend we need to monitor more closely. As reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, spending lapses — that is, money approved by Parliament but is unspent and for which legal authority expires at the end of a fiscal year — reached record levels in 2021. The PBO suggests that spending lapses as a share of voted budgetary authorities were close to 7%, or roughly $13 billion, in 2020-21, increasing over time since 2017-18.

The bulk of the increased spending lapses over the last few years has been attributed to the extraordinary federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The argument is that Parliament was asked to approve unprecedented amounts of funding at record speeds to respond to a quickly changing environment. Even the government acknowledged at the start of the pandemic that the priority was to get money to households and businesses as quickly as possible.

Speaking of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, former Minister of Finance Bill Morneau told senators in April 2020:

. . . we’re trying to get money to people as fast as we can and in the most practical ways we can. We think we have found the best way.

It is important to emphasize the difficult task the government faced at the start of the pandemic, which was having to ensure the health and safety of Canadians while providing financial supports for those impacted, and doing it in a manner that was quickest.

However, three years into the pandemic, when jurisdictions are cautiously beginning to loosen restrictions and reopen their economies on the advice of public health officials, we continue to see mismanagement of federal spending. To highlight this, Bill C-15 would grant Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada $4 billion to procure rapid tests. Yet, this funding request has been duplicated in two other bills already before Parliament, Bill C-8 and Bill C-10.

The federal government has claimed the reason for this duplication is to ensure speedy procurement of rapid tests using the first authority available to them, whereby remaining requests would simply lapse. Colleagues, this is simply an unacceptable way of managing public finances. This type of exercise should not be allowed to become the norm. Federal departments should undertake serious diligence to ensure the best use of public resources the first time.

I share this sentiment of the Senate Finance Committee, which found this approach to be unclear and unacceptable. In my view, this illustrates poor planning on the part of the government and, once more, impedes our ability to carry out our directives as senators.

While spending lapses are expected in any budget, as authorities sought out by the departments are the estimations of their expenditure needs, the steady increase in spending lapses over the last several years could become problematic. We, as parliamentarians, should continue to monitor closely.

I welcome and echo the remarks of the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance in their review of the Supplementary Estimates (C), 2021-22, urging the government to end the practice of duplicating funding requests, as well as demanding clear explanations from the Treasury Board Secretariat in this regard.

Honourable senators, to conclude, I would urge the government to set mandatory dates for the tabling of departmental plans and departmental results reports. In doing so, this exercise would better align funding requests with past performance records. Moreover, the continued increases in spending lapses and frozen allotments suggest the government has made little progress in its spending plans and reporting guidelines. Therefore, I would urge the government to better prioritize funding requests to ensure effective and efficient uses of resources. Thank you so much.