Appearance before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts

• Previous
• Table of Contents
• Next

Opening remarks for Kelly Gillis, Deputy Minister of Infrastructure and Communities

Good morning.

Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about the Auditor General's Report on the Investing in Canada Plan.

I would like to begin by acknowledging that the land on which I am joining from is the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people.

I'm pleased to be here with my colleagues from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Indigenous Services Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Privy Council Office.

We thank the Auditor General and her staff for their examination of the government's 12 year, $188-billion Investing in Canada Plan, and we accept the Auditor General's recommendation.

Introduced in Budget 2016 and 2017, the Investing in Canada Plan was created to provide comprehensive reporting on a cross-government effort to deliver infrastructure projects to communities across Canada.

Infrastructure Canada has a dual role in the Investing in Canada Plan.

The first of these is the delivery of infrastructure funding. Infrastructure Canada is one of twenty-one departments and agencies responsible for administering programming included in the Plan.

In our second role, Infrastructure Canada acts as the central hub for reporting on plan-wide data. While each of the twenty-one departments and agencies who report into the Plan are accountable for the management of their programs, Infrastructure Canada provides rolled-up data on progress, all in one place.

This information gives Canadians a global perspective on how the Plan is moving forward. For example, our website provides a full accounting of the $188 billion in funding delivered under the Plan – how this funding has been allocated to programs, how much has been approved for specific projects and how much has been paid out to recipients.

As a result of this “horizontal reporting” of the Plan's progress, I am able to say that federal departments and agencies have approved over $81 billion in funding under the plan – 43 percent of the total, 40 percent of the way through the Plan – associated with over 67,000 projects, of which over 91 percent (61,582) have started.

Infrastructure Canada's horizontal results reporting role is set out in requirements of the Treasury Board. But we have also created additional tools to enrich how we report to Canadians.

Among these tools is our online geo-map, which enables the identification of projects in specific regions and communities.

Also, in response to requests for information from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, we have provided additional project-level information, in a way that is as comprehensive and comparable as the source data allows.

It is important to note, however, that not all programs report the same kind of information in the same way.

This is because programs have been set up with different requirements, reflecting their diverse policy goals.

Some, like the Gas Tax Fund, provide funding as an up-front grant. While funding under such programs is fully accounted for and their performance is audited, very little project-level information is requested of applicants, by design.

Others, like the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, are application-based – permitting federal departments and agencies to collect very detailed, project-level information.

It is also true that some programs operate through long-standing funding mechanisms, which pre-dated the Plan – what we call “legacy” programs.

The reporting requirements of these programs were preserved when the Plan was put in place. Changing them would have caused significant delays, introduced uncertainty for infrastructure investments, and would have been counter to binding agreements.

However, as these programs reflect considerable on-going investments in Infrastructure, they were included in the Plan “as-is.” Where possible, we have integrated the available data from these programs into the horizontal reporting under the Plan.

I would like to underscore that this entire horizontal reporting framework sits on top of existing departmental requirements and accountabilities for individual programs.

Each of the twenty-one departments and agencies is individually responsible for its respective programs, their design, spending under them, their oversight and reporting.

This information is available through each department's own reporting framework, and can be reviewed through tools such as Departmental Results Reports, Main Estimates, Public Accounts and proactive disclosures on the Open Government Portal.

As a horizontal reporting framework, the Investing in Canada Plan serves the role of pulling information together under one roof.

We have developed a number of tools to report to Canadians and have continued to evolve our reporting. But we also know there is room for improvement.

The Auditor General examined our reporting on the Plan. In one of her findings, she found that Infrastructure Canada did not report consistent and complete information because we did not receive consistent program data from departments.

The Auditor General also found that legacy programs – those that existed prior to the creation of the Plan – were not included in the results reporting on the Plan.

In developing our Management Action Plan, Infrastructure Canada is taking careful note of these concerns, and work with our delivery partners to ensure that Canadians and Parliamentarians have meaningful information about the infrastructure that is being built under the Plan.

The Auditor General also noted that 20 percent of the funds from the first three years of the Plan were reprofiled to later years.

Five years into a 12-year Plan, over 40 percent of the funds have been committed and as of January 2021, $48 billion has flowed to recipients.

It's important to note that, for most infrastructure programs, federal spending is made as a reimbursement after the fact. This means that programs are rolled out, projects start, construction begins, and economic activity is spurred – all long before federal dollars are paid out.

Also, it is critical to understand that Infrastructure funding does not lapse. Rather, it is reprofiled – carried forward to future years under the Plan so it continues to be available as infrastructure projects are being built.

It is nevertheless a priority for Infrastructure Canada and all departments and agencies under the Plan to ensure that funding is not only available for use by recipients, but is being used to build the infrastructure that will deliver outcomes for Canadians.

There are a number of efforts underway at Infrastructure Canada that work toward this end, which I would be pleased to discuss during the question and answer.

We appreciate the opportunities the Auditor General's work provides to improve how we report on the Investing in Canada Plan in collaboration with our partners.

I am happy to answer your questions. Thank you.