CSE budget authority rises to $708.1 million

The Supplementary Estimates (B) for FY 2018-19, tabled in Parliament at the end of January, show another significant proposed increase in CSE's spending authorities — to a new total of $708.1 million. The Main Estimates for FY 2018-19, tabled in April 2018, showed a budget of $624.9 million for the agency, later increased in the Supplementary Estimates (A) to $682.9 million.

The main cause of the latest increase was the transfer of $11.5 million in budget authority from the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness and Shared Services Canada "to establish the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security," presumably primarily to pay for the staff transferred to CSE from those departments when the Cyber Centre was created on October 1st last year. As a result of this transfer, CSE now has approximately 2500 employees.

Other than FY 2014-15, when a one-time $300-million payment for the agency's new headquarters bumped its budget up to just over $850 million, this marks the first time that CSE's budget authority has crossed the $700-million line.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether all that money actually will be spent by the end of the fiscal year.


Update 15 December 2019: It wasn't. According to the Public Accounts of Canada 2019 (Vol. 2, p. 345), CSE's actual 2018-19 expenditure was $681.7 million.