Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that the lands on which we are gathered are part of the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples.

I'm joined today by members of my department to give an overview of the supplementary estimates (C) 2023-24.

Supplementary estimates (C) total $13.2 billion. This amount includes a $4.3‑billion increase to planned statutory expenditures. The government is asking Parliament to approve an additional $8.9 billion in voted appropriations.

In addition to planned spending, these estimates include $11.9 million in frozen allotments. These are essentially reductions to departmental budgets throughout the year. This year's amount includes $500 million in departmental spending reductions under the refocusing government spending initiative.

Recent reports on government contracts and actions by some individuals is cause for serious concern. As the Auditor General confirmed, there are rules to ensure healthy procurement and management practices throughout government, but many of them were not respected.

Mr. Chair, earlier today I announced a series of actions that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat will take to strengthen our oversight of departmental practices to support effective and streamlined management across government.

These actions include the immediate release of an updated “Manager's Guide” when procuring professional services to ensure that managers are receiving a clear statement of work and doing due diligence to maintain the integrity of the procurement, including not committing to any payments before those items have been received; embedding certain elements of the manager's guide within Treasury Board's mandatory procedures to strengthen the accountability of a manager's role in procurement; and releasing a new risk and compliance process, which will assess government-wide trends, risks and individual departmental performance, and I will say will also include a horizontal comprehensive audit across government departments. Also, there will be a reviewing of the directive on conflict of interest to ensure that the requirements are clear and effective and to ensure that more oversight, if needed, will occur.

Improvements to the proactive disclosure of government contracts on the open data portal will also be part of this emphasis. We want to make sure that we have transparency in government contracting, and that will include on the portal itself.

Canadians expect their government to invest their money wisely and responsibly. Together with Minister Duclos and his team, we will ensure that the leaders of our public service manage their organizations efficiently and in a manner that maintains public confidence.

But parliamentary scrutiny and approval of expenditure plans are only part of the equation: Canadians expect us to execute effectively, and maintaining public confidence in democratic institutions must be our priority, especially at this moment in time. We will continue to step up to play that role.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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