Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 9th, 2006

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

It's dire, yes.

[Sheila Fraser]

If people do not produce those reports, the first nation has its funding cut, so there's a very strong incentive to produce the reports.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I have national chief Phil Fontaine's comments here. He makes reference to work he's been doing with your office for the last couple of years towards an independent first nations auditor general. Can you give us a status report on that work?

[Sheila Fraser]

We have had several discussions with the grand chief and the AFN, as well as government officials--the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs--on the possibility of establishing a first nations auditor general. It is still in very early stages, but they are definitely very interested in that and would really, I think, like to move in that direction. Obviously, as they say, the devil is always in the details as to how you go around this, but we have certainly indicated, both to government and to the AFN, that we will be supportive in this process.

We have also had discussions previously with the first nations of Saskatchewan, and they have also explored the possibility of setting up an auditor general for the Saskatchewan first nations.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Monsieur Petit, go ahead, please.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Ms. Fraser, Mr. Wiersema and Mr. Ste-Marie, good afternoon.

Let me ask you a question. You mentioned four things and I would like to discuss the one that dealt with access to information. You said two things in your opening remarks. First, one might say that you are very liberal, in the philosophical sense, when it comes to disclosing information from your office. On the other hand, you seem to be saying that because of the Access to Information Act, you had a great deal of difficulty in getting answers. Did I understand your statements correctly?

[Sheila Fraser]

Not quite. We disclose information regarding all aspects of office management, but we would like, as proposed in the bill, that all our auditing files, all our work sheets and interview notes and other such things be excluded from the Access to Information Act.

Our audit operations are not subject to the Access to Information Act. The Auditor General Act obliges the government to provide us with all the information we need. This is much broader than what is covered by the Access to Information Act.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Basically, you only get involved when the investigation begins. You collect data pursuant to the Access to Information Act and you say that they should not be disclosed. Am I right?

[Sheila Fraser]

I mean all the information involved in an audit. We believe that it should all be protected because otherwise, it could hinder our ability to carry out audits. We are entrusted with much confidential information. Afterwards, we follow a procedure in order to validate the data. Sometimes, we might have draft reports based on inaccurate data or data that may be out of context. If these reports were freely distributed, it could create problems for us and for the government, because of the erroneous information they contain. We firmly believe that audit files must be exempted from the Access to Information Act, as this bill proposes.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

When you get an erroneous piece of information, you report it and state that there is an error. Can this be accessed?

[Sheila Fraser]

Our procedures provide for exchanges and draft reports with the department we are auditing. At the end of the process, we ask the department to confirm the accuracy of the facts. We take every possible steps to ensure that there are no errors in our reports.

[Daniel Petit, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Fraser.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

That concludes the first round. Let's start the second round with Mr. Holland.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Madam Fraser. It's good to see you again, and we certainly appreciate your coming before the committee.

I have just a bit of commentary first, and I'd be interested in your take on it. Looking through this and hearing some of the comments that have been made--and certainly I'm supportive of strengthening any measures with respect to accountability--some of these items strike me as a little bit of placebo policy, for example, as they pertain to foundations. In the previous Parliament there was certainly an effort by all parties--in part through the committee that I was on, the public accounts committee, and Mr. Sauvageau was there as well--to address many of the concerns that you had raised with respect to foundations. In a bipartisan way we recognize that the concerns you put forward regarding foundations were legitimate. They needed to be addressed, and we tried to support you in that. Fortunately, the Treasury Board did implement substantive changes that essentially--maybe not totally--addressed all of the concerns, and now what we're seeing in this legislation that's been put forward is perhaps some tweaking or additions. What I'm seeing is that they're largely really additions that you would rarely exercise or implement. So I'm wondering to what extent those are redundant or might further complicate your role in the sense that your role tends to be one that needs to be highly focused. If there is an expectation by taking on these new roles, is that going to cause difficulty?

My bigger concern, though, in this process rests with the point that Mr. Martin made on extending your jurisdiction into first nations. I know this notion of creating a first nations auditor general is certainly laudable, and I think that's the direction we should be going in. I know that there's been extensive auditing that has already been occurring there, but I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on the potential for a conflict arising. If you had a first nations auditor general and you as auditor general also had responsibility for auditing the first nations, wouldn't that create some kind of difficulty in terms of who's at the top of that food chain and who's reporting to whom? Isn't it going to further undermine, in fact, the issue of autonomy? Maybe this is more of my own commentary than something you can say, but if the objective is to give more autonomy to first nations peoples, then aren't we undermining that autonomy by casting you into an area in which you yourself have said you would rarely use the authority given to you, if at all?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Holland is correct that our concerns about audit access or auditing of foundations were covered or addressed last summer by Bill C-43, and I guess the whole question as to whether our mandate is expanded or not is really up to Parliament to decide on. What I would say is that we believe it essential that there be the words “that the audits be conducted at the discretion of the Auditor General” so the Auditor General is the one who decides whether and how this expanded mandate would be used. I don't expect that there would be any conflict if there were to be a first nations auditor general, because as I said earlier, we would go back and look at the systems and practices in place to ensure that moneys are being spent to achieve the objectives intended. If there was a first nations auditor general, that would obviously form part of that, and it would reinforce I think the belief that moneys were being properly spent. As you said, it's all about managing expectations, isn't it?

We will have to see. We've always tried to be responsive to parliamentarians if parliamentarians have particular concerns or issues that they think an audit would be helpful in resolving, and the committee requests we have always tried to accommodate within our work plan. I guess we would need to have a better understanding from parliamentarians, if they were to ask us to do some work, of what the underlying concern is and determine whether an audit really would be the best tool to address that concern, because an audit doesn't solve everything.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I certainly would agree with you that the power needs to rest with you in determining where you need to go. As committees we can raise issues or concerns and bring them to your attention, but ultimately the authority of where you go and what you pursue needs to be your own. That point I think needs to be particularly stressed.

I also have some concerns with some of the vernacular that's used. We're talking about foundations as being these awful, horrible things, but the reality is the Foundation for Innovation and many others do serve very useful functions. I think while we're trying to incrementally improve our accountability process we do have to exercise a certain degree of caution to not set labels. Earlier you had mentioned bureaucrats, but I would also include foundations and some of the good work they do. I suggest that we be judicious and careful about the type of wording and vernacular we use to describe these situations, in order not to create a situation in which we give false impressions about some of the good things they do.

[Sheila Fraser]

Absolutely, I agree with that totally, and I look forward to reporting on some of these broad-scope audits in which we have included foundations. For example, the Commissioner of the Environment will be coming in the fall with a report on climate change, and the Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology plays a large role in that. So we are looking at that in the broader aspect of climate change initiatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Lukiwski.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to the committee. It's a pleasure.

I notice many other members of this committee have had an opportunity to meet you before, and as I said just a few moments ago, it's my first opportunity. I am a big fan. I do want to point out what I'm sure many other parliamentarians and Canadians have said in past years, that you have, I believe rightfully so, the reputation of being somewhat of a Canadian hero for all of the work you did in the sponsorship scandal. Quite frankly, I think the work you did there is not only laudable, but I think it was the genesis for what we are dealing with right now. So thank you. I'm very pleased to see Canadian taxpayers' interests are being served so well.

The questions I did have, have already been addressed by other members of the committee, but I do want to ask you one more that I'm curious about. It's on the appointment process, where you have suggested that you were in favour--and please correct me if I'm wrong--of having a secret ballot in the process of appointing your position, because you feel that if the actual vote count were known, and those who opposed perhaps the appointment of a particular Auditor General were known, it might have an adverse impact on the ability of the Auditor General to perform his or her duties. The counter argument to a secret ballot, of course...and I'm sure probably some on this committee would say, well, I believe in the concept of stand and be counted; it's important for our constituents to know how we vote on issues, particularly with appointments of officers of Parliament.

So I'd just like you to comment on your belief that a secret ballot is the way. How adversely would your ability to do your job be impacted if you knew that, say, 40% of parliamentarians perhaps did not vote in favour of a specific appointment?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you. I went through obviously a very different appointment process, which was I think a rigorous process, where there was a search committee, a selection committee, and then a recommendation, and consultation with the opposition parties. There wasn't a vote, obviously, and there wasn't a review by a committee before that.

It is absolutely essential for any agent of Parliament to be viewed as non-partisan and completely objective. I would caution the committee that any process that is put in place for the appointment of an agent of Parliament cannot become politicized. To sit in front of parliamentarians and know that a certain party or 40% voted against you I think would be extremely uncomfortable. Speaking personally, individually, if that were the process, I don't think I would accept the appointment if there was not...if it was to be open, it would have to be unanimous consent. Otherwise, what sort of a position is somebody going to be in to be working for people and knowing that 40% didn't want them? I just think it could make it very, very awkward, and it has the risk of politicizing the process. I don't think you should have people lobbying for these positions or trying to.... It shouldn't become a beauty contest, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

That's why we say that something like the procedure used for the Speaker, where the person is voted, named, but then there are no actual results given afterwards, and then it becomes a unanimous decision.... I would prefer something like that.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you very much for your comments.

I have no more questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Sauvageau.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Since we do not have much time, I'm going to be asking short questions and I would appreciate short answers.

Clauses 304 to 308 of Bill C-2 amend the Auditor General Act. Do you want to see amendments to clauses 304 to 308, and if so, which clauses do you want amended?

[Sheila Fraser]

We are not calling for amendments to the bill. It is up to Parliament to determine what the law should be. We have simply stated how we would implement the provisions of the bill if it were passed. So we are not calling for any amendments.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

If the act were in force and you could investigate all the grants of one million dollars and more, you would not do so systematically, it would be done on a random basis. For example, if a department is not doing its work properly, there are potentially two entities responsible for that: either you or the department. If we were to give you this power, is there not a risk that a department could subsequently say that if funds were misappropriated, the Auditor General could have looked into the matter?