Canada. Treasury Board : The fonds of the Treasury Board is comprised of a complex hybrid entity incorporating a Committee of Cabinet (the Treasury Board) together with a supporting secretariat which has evolved from a single officer of the Department of Finance into an agency constituting one or more departments of government with the President of the Treasury Board (a Minister in the cabinet) serving as administrative head thereof since 1966. This hybrid organizational entity has performed a policy making, coordination, and central administrative role in the broad functions of personnel management, financial management and general administrative procedures across the government of Canada under a general mandate that has tended to grow over time until it has come to approach the scope of a general board of management for the Government of Canada.
The Treasury Board as a Committee of Cabinet was constituted as the Board of Treasury by order-in-council, PC 1867-3, and confirmed by Statute in 1869 as the Treasury Board, 32-33 Vic., c. 4, s. 4. Before reforms implemented after 1931, the office of Secretary of the Board was filled by Deputy Minister of Finance and the Secretariat as such never grew to more than a handful of support staff from the Department of Finance. The Financial Administrative Act (FAA) of 1951, 15-16 Geo. VI, c 12, confirmed the modern administrative functions of the Board and the scope of activity of its growing secretariat that had emerged out of administrative reforms begun in 1931 under the Consolidated Revenue and Audit Act, (21-22 Geo. V, c 27). Outwardly, however, the legislation of 1951 did not alter the basic legislative structure that had existed since 1868 ( the legal myth of committee of cabinet supported by a secretary which remained an autonomous component of the Department of Finance). The Act of 1951 still left much of the mandate and functions to be filled in through numerous subsequent amendments.
The Government Organization Act of 1966, SC 1966-67, c. 32, s. 4.2, constituted the Treasury Board Secretariat as a separate Department of Government for the first time. Between 1978 and 1993, the Treasury Board as a Committee of Cabinet was supported by two parallel secretariats with the second created out of amendments to the Financial Administration Act, 30 June 1978, SC 1977-78, c.33, permitting the appointment of a second secretary to the Treasury Board. The head of the parallel secretariat, entitled the Office of the Comptroller General of Canada (not to be confused with the Office or functions of the Comptroller of the Treasury), had the status of deputy head and reported to the President of the Treasury Board in parallel to the Secretary of the Treasury Board. In 1993 the Office of the Comptroller General was folded back into a single Treasury Board Secretariat using the simple expedient of appointing the Secretary of the Treasury Board to serve in both positions and integrating the surviving programs and activities of the Comptroller General into a radically reorganized single departmental structure. Such is the flexibility of the revised FAA that this radical restructuring could be effected without any legislative change.
Other semi-autonomous entities that have operated over the years as part of the Treasury Board universe include the Bureau of Government Organization, (1963-1968), the Departmental Commission on Public Records (1897), and various organizational entities mandated to coordinate the Regulatory Affairs review process (1979-1991). Other organizational entities have operated within the Treasury Board universe in a more clearly subordinate capacity including the Steamer Prince Alfred Quarantine Claims Commission, 1872-1874; the St. Lawrence Seaway Construction Claims Advisory Committee, 1961; the Overseas Treasury Board Advisory Committee, 1963; the Crown Corporations Directorate and successor entitities, (1984- ); the Bureau of Real Property (1986-1991); and various Task Forces such as the Task Force on Informatics (1983-1984); or the Task Force on Barriers to Women in the Public Service (1988-1990). Treasury Board mandates and activities also result in the Secretariat participating with other organizations and departments of government and maintaining its own documentation of such involvement, such as the Department of Veterans Affairs Projects Committee, 1946-1958, or the Committee on Working Conditions in the Public Service (an off-shoot of the National Joint Council of the Public Service of Canada). The modern Treasury Board also initiates or sponsors numerous interdepartmental committees which seek to forge policy, procedures or best practices guidelines on a collaborative basis.
