OGGO meeting 33 · 2026-03-26 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

This House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates meeting studied the 2025-26 Supplementary Estimates (C). Appearing were Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali, Treasury Board Secretary Bill Matthews, and Assistant Secretary Antoine Brunelle-Côté.

Bill Matthews explained that the $1-billion Vote 50 is a contingency fund for urgent defence needs, not a blank cheque, as any spending requires Treasury Board approval and will be reported in the next estimates; he noted it will likely not all be spent this fiscal year. He defended the comprehensive expenditure review as a reallocation exercise, not a job-cutting one, and said the early retirement incentive aims to minimize forced departures by waiving pension penalties for those near retirement. On the 2% NATO target, he clarified that only about $1 billion of the Coast Guard's budget was newly counted after its transfer to National Defence, as most of its activities were already included. He disagreed with the suggestion that re-profiled spending—$7.4 billion pushed to future years—indicates failure, arguing it reflects the "up to" nature of voted amounts and partner-driven delays.

Antoine Brunelle-Côté confirmed that the supplementary estimates include $561 million for capital projects for National Defence and noted that 13 budget 2025 measures, worth $485 million, are in the estimates, with the bulk being $150 million for the CBC and $218 million for defence. He added that the remaining 88% of spending in the estimates is not linked to the budget but consists of catch-up adjustments and large items like defence and Canada Post funding.

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Witnesses · 2

Bill Matthews

Secretary of the Treasury Board of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat

Opening remarks

We can provide a detailed response to the committee, Mr. Chair. However, I would like to clarify that there are in fact two systems. First, there is the Phoenix pay system and, every year, we allocate funding to Public Services and Procurement Canada so that it can manage that program. Second, we are in the process of developing a new software to replace Phoenix in the coming years and there is also a budget for that project.

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Antoine Brunelle-Côté

Assistant Secretary, Expenditure Management Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat

Opening remarks

Yes, I can confirm what was just said. The only thing that I would add is that there is also $561 million for a series of capital projects. There is nothing for housing specifically, but there is a series of capital projects that are also included in the supplementary estimates (C).

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