Financial overview

2019-2020 Main Estimates

The Main Estimates provide a listing of the resources required by individual departments and agencies for the upcoming fiscal year in order to deliver the programs for which they are responsible. It identifies the spending authorities (votes) and the amounts included in subsequent appropriation bills that Parliament will be asked to approve in order to enable the government to proceed with its spending plans.

For ECCC, the 2019-20 Main Estimates were tabled on April 11, 2019 and provided $1.828 billion in spending authorities which represents an increase of $312 million from the 2018-19 Main Estimates of $1.516 billion.

ECCC received spending authorities through three main Votes:

• Vote 1: Operating expenditures totaling $837.3 million, which is $84.7 million higher than 2018-19 Main Estimates of $752.6 million.
• Vote 5: Capital expenditures totaling $82.3 million, which is $6.1 million higher than the 2018-19 Main Estimates of $76.2 million.
• Vote 10: Grants and contributions totaling $787.6 million, which is $187.0 million higher than the 2018-19 Main Estimates of $600.6 million.

In addition to the Voted authorities under Vote 1, 5 and 10, ECCC also received a total of $26.3 million under four Budget Implementation Votes to enable timely implementation of Budget 2019 measures.

Statutory items totalling $94.6 million which is $8.2 million higher than the Main Estimates 2018-19 of $86.4 million are also presented in the Main Estimates for information purposes and are mainly related to the Employee Benefit Plans.

Respendable revenues

The main sources of ECCC’s Vote Netted Revenue (VNR) in 2019-20 are derived from specialized weather services and scientific activities related to oil sands monitoring. These authorities are netted from the votes and therefore not presented in the 2019-20 Main Estimates. In addition to the spending authorities included in the 2019-20 Main Estimates, ECCC has $82.5 million in respendable revenues for 2019-20, which is $1.3 million lower than the respendable revenues of $83.8 million from the 2018-19 Main Estimates.

This brings the total authorities of the Department to $1.911 billion for 2019-20.

Resource management

The overall financial situation and expenditures are monitored on a regular basis. This includes monthly status updates as well as in-depth departmental review at mid-year. Proactive financial strategies are put in place, as appropriate, to maximise the utilization of resources and achieve Departmental results.

The Department is aligned with government policies and management practices in trying to implement more efficient ways of doing business and delivering services.