House of Commons, Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

Re: RE: RE: Brief for the Comprehensive Expenditure Review — making federal bodies pay for their own documented defects

Hello,

This supplements the brief of 29 August 2026, which is before the members. It adds 1 document that did not exist when the brief was filed.

On 23 September 2026 the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Pension Policy and Programs, wrote to me: "neither the Treasury Board nor the President of the Treasury Board has authority under the PSSA to reduce or withhold a public servant's pension benefit because the person was dismissed for misconduct." Subsection 11(4) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act gives that power over a constable to the Treasury Board, a committee over which the President presides under subsection 5(1) of the Financial Administration Act. The Public Service Superannuation Act carried a definition of misconduct until 1999, when Bill C-78, a Government bill sponsored by the President of the Treasury Board, repealed it. The Canadian Forces Superannuation Act does not contain the word. The Secretariat's letter names the Minister of Public Safety as responsible for the RCMP rule and states no position of the President on why the difference exists or whether it should stay.

The finding, the 4 statutes as captured on 24 September 2026, and the Secretariat's letter in full are published at https://dzyuban.com/legal/findings/misconduct-pension-rule/

Three questions follow from the letter, and the committee that oversees the Secretariat and examines its Estimates can put each of them to the President over the President's name.

1. On what basis the only federal pension rule that punishes misconduct applies to members of the RCMP and to no other federal employee.

2. Which of the 2 routes the Government supports: extending subsection 11(4) to the Public Service Superannuation Act, or repealing it for the RCMP. A Senate public bill that does the first, word for word, is drafted and is available to the committee on request.

3. Whether the Secretariat's own rule, "authority cannot be inferred where the legislation does not provide it", governs its access office. That office has held access request A-2026-00378, for the records behind the 1999 repeal, "in abeyance" and "on hold" since 2 September 2026 under powers the Access to Information Act does not provide, and has not decided the fee waiver the Act does provide. That matter has been before the Information Commissioner since 23 September 2026.

I ask the clerk to place this supplement with the brief and to confirm in writing that it went to the members. The Secretariat's date for its own answers is 7 October 2026. After that date the record of what the President chose not to answer goes with the bill to the Senate.

Respectfully,
Danilo Dzyuban

RE: Brief for the Comprehensive Expenditure Review — making federal bodies pay for their own documented defects

Hello,

Yes. The consolidated brief follows below and is attached as a Word file. It replaces the text of 29 August 2026 and the supplement of 24 September 2026. It is the final text for translation, distribution to the members and publication.

Against the text of 29 August 2026 there are 3 changes. A new section records the letter of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat of 23 September 2026. It puts 3 questions to the President of the Treasury Board, and recommendation 5 follows from them. Next, the model bill and the registry, described on 29 August as available on request, are published, and the closing section gives the addresses. Last, the author line carries the name and the city only. The street address and the telephone number are out, as the clerk proposed on 8 September 2026.

Confirm receipt by 2 October 2026. Send the date on which the consolidated text goes to the members, and the link and the date of publication when the brief is posted.

Respectfully,
Danilo Dzyuban
----------------------------------------

BRIEF TO THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS AND ESTIMATES.

Study: Comprehensive Expenditure Review.

Submitted by Danilo Dzyuban, Ottawa, Ontario
29 August 2026. Consolidated text of 25 September 2026, incorporating the supplement of 24 September 2026.

SUMMARY.

An expenditure review asks where money goes and what it buys. This brief raises a prior question. Where a federal body fails to deliver what its own published standard promises, nobody outside that body measures the failure, and the body bears no cost for it.

The proposal below adds no department, seeks no new appropriation, and places the cost of a defect on the body that caused it.

The section added on 25 September 2026 records a written answer of the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat on a pension rule that reaches members of the RCMP and no other federal employee, and the 3 questions that answer leaves open.

THE PRECEDENT ALREADY EXISTS IN CANADIAN LAW.

The Ontario Securities Commission pays members of the public for information about breaches of securities law, in amounts of up to 5 million dollars. The Canada Revenue Agency pays members of the public a share of the tax it recovers on information they provide.

In both cases the state concluded that an outsider sees what internal control misses, and put a price on that sight.

A federal body that breaks an obligation it published itself, in a statute, a regulation or its own service standard, carries no such price. In most cases it carries no external measurement of any kind. Compliance with published service standards is assessed from inside the body that wrote them.

WHY THIS BELONGS IN AN EXPENDITURE REVIEW.

The incentive runs backwards. The person who identifies a defect bears the whole cost of documenting it and receives nothing. The body that caused the defect bears no cost and grades its own performance.

An expenditure review that measures only what departments report about themselves cannot detect the gap between the standard and the delivery. That gap is where public money produces nothing, and it is invisible by construction.

THE PROPOSAL.

Any person may submit a verified defect in the operation of a federal body, without regard to citizenship, immigration status, residence, age or professional credentials.

An existing oversight office, rather than a new body, assesses each submission against published criteria and determines an award. Four criteria: how many people the defect reaches, the severity of the harm, the difficulty of obtaining a remedy, and how far it is entrenched in policy.

The responsible body pays the award out of its own appropriation, and answers each submission in writing within 45 days. Failure to answer within that period is recorded and increases the award.

Every submission, every response and every award is recorded in a public registry that costs nothing to read and requires no account.

A person who submits a finding is protected from reprisal and from denial of service by reason of the submission.

TWO DESIGN CHOICES, BOTH DELIBERATE.

The cost falls on the body that caused the defect, not on the general estimates. A programme funded from the central fiscal framework gives no department a reason to correct anything.

The work goes to an existing office rather than a new one, so the programme creates no institution and adds no permanent establishment.

ONE DOCUMENT THAT DID NOT EXIST WHEN THIS BRIEF WAS FILED.

On 23 September 2026 the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Pension Policy and Programs, wrote to the author: "neither the Treasury Board nor the President of the Treasury Board has authority under the PSSA to reduce or withhold a public servant's pension benefit because the person was dismissed for misconduct."

Subsection 11(4) of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act gives that power over a constable to the Treasury Board, a committee over which the President presides under subsection 5(1) of the Financial Administration Act. The Public Service Superannuation Act carried a definition of misconduct until 1999, when Bill C-78, a Government bill sponsored by the President of the Treasury Board, repealed it. The Canadian Forces Superannuation Act does not contain the word. The Secretariat's letter names the Minister of Public Safety as responsible for the RCMP rule and states no position of the President on why the difference exists or whether it should stay.

The finding, the 4 statutes as captured on 24 September 2026, and the Secretariat's letter in full are published at https://dzyuban.com/legal/findings/misconduct-pension-rule/.

3 questions follow from the letter. The committee that oversees the Secretariat and examines its Estimates can put each of them to the President over the President's name.

1. On what basis the only federal pension rule that punishes misconduct applies to members of the RCMP and to no other federal employee.

2. Which of the 2 routes the Government supports: extending subsection 11(4) to the Public Service Superannuation Act, or repealing it for the RCMP. A Senate public bill that does the first, word for word, is drafted and is available to the committee on request.

3. Whether the Secretariat's own rule, "Authority to reduce or withhold such benefits cannot be inferred where the legislation does not provide it", governs its access to information office. That office has held access request A-2026-00378, for the records behind the 1999 repeal, "in abeyance" and "on hold" since 2 September 2026 under powers the Access to Information Act does not provide, and has not decided the fee waiver the Act does provide. On 24 September 2026 the same office answered a second request, for the decisions of the Treasury Board under subsection 11(4) since 2000, with the same text. Both matters are before the Information Commissioner.

The Secretariat was asked on 23 September 2026 for the basis of the difference and for the President's position. Its acknowledgement gives 10 business days for the answer.

The handling of those 2 requests is a defect of the kind this brief describes: an obligation the Act sets, a practice the Act does not provide, and no cost to the body.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

1. That the committee examine whether compliance by federal bodies with their own published service standards is measured by any body outside those departments, and report the answer

2. That the committee require the Treasury Board Secretariat to state what mechanism exists today for an outsider to report a departure from a published federal service standard, and what happens to such a report

3. That the committee consider a public accountability bounty programme on the model set out above, administered by an existing office and funded from the appropriation of the body responsible

4. That the committee report whether the absence of any external measurement of service-standard compliance constitutes a gap in expenditure oversight

5. That the committee put the 3 questions set out above to the President of the Treasury Board, over the President's name, and report the answers and the date on which each was given

A MODEL BILL AND A REGISTRY ARE PUBLISHED.

The federal text of the model bill, the Public Accountability Bounty Act, is published in full at https://dzyuban.com/legal/bills/public-accountability-bounty/. It creates no office, no position and no fund, and directs each award to be paid out of moneys appropriated by Parliament for the purposes of the body responsible.

The registry of documented findings is published at https://dzyuban.com/registry/. Each entry names the obligation and its source, proves the departure by a document, and is scored against published criteria, with the arithmetic shown.

I hold no institutional position and no contract with any federal body.

Danilo Dzyuban
Ottawa, Ontario

Attachments: Brief-OGGO-Comprehensive-Expenditure-Review-Dzyuban-consolidated-2026-09-25.docx