Guidance for Crown Corporations to Report on Implementation of Travel and Hospitality Order in Council in Corporate Plan

Crown corporations are expected to report on their progress in implementing the Order in Council, highlighting key changes made to their existing policies, guidelines and practices to align with Treasury Board instruments, indicating whether their policies are now in full compliance or providing progress against a plan to undertake changes to policies to achieve full alignment under a specific timeframe.

Of note, Crown corporations are also expected to report on the progress of implementation of these changes to policies and practices for their wholly-owned subsidiaries.

In addition, the corporate plan should indicate if some aspects of Treasury Board travel, hospitality, conference and event requirements are not compatible with Crown corporation legal obligations.

The corporate plan should describe the corporation’s approaches to improving transparency and communication to the public on its management of travel and hospitality expenditures, including the implementation of the proactive disclosure of travel and hospitality expenses, as well as whether and when the corporation intends to publish its updated travel, hospitality, conference and event expenditure policies on its website.

The corporate plan is expected to indicate the total annual expenditures for each of travel, hospitality, and conference fees^{Footnote  1} over the last fiscal year, as well as an average of these expenditures over the previous three fiscal years. The corporate plan should also include forecasted expenditures for each of these categories over the planning period following the implementation of the travel directive.

Please note that one of the requirements of the Treasury Board Directive on Travel, Hospitality, Conference and Event Expenditures is to disclose the total annual expenditures for each of travel, hospitality and conference fees for the corporation for the last fiscal year, through its website, including a brief description of the main variances from the previous year’s actual expenditures. The timing of this disclosure is to coincide with the tabling of the corporation’s Annual Report. Crown corporations are not required to provide an explanation of variances in their first annual report, but only in the second and subsequent annual reports.

If applicable, corporations should describe key challenges in implementing the travel directive, with sufficient business and workforce description to provide context. The operational and financial impacts of these key challenges should be outlined.