Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 5th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

And be prepared to come to the committee and give a full, forthright explanation as to why certain actions were taken.

Mr. Christopherson, you have a brief comment.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I do. Thank you, Chair.

As a former Solicitor General of Ontario, I have reasons to agree with Mr. Williams' position, if not necessarily for those reasons. I think there are other good reasons we want to be very, very careful before we start asking for investigation files and the like.

I think the final compromise is a good one in that it still leaves open the option of going further if we're not satisfied and if it doesn't take us across those lines right away. So I would ask Mr. Wrzesnewskyj to give consideration to that, that it still leaves open the option of further steps if we're not satisfied. But I would have a lot of trouble accepting this as the first go-through.

But let me also say, Chair, that this is another one of the reasons there is a problem, in that there is no civilian oversight body with the RCMP. I admit straight up that we have the same problem in Ontario with the OPP. That's something that needs to be in place because—to answer your question, Mr. Williams, of who would we go to—that would be the body to go to. Otherwise, all we do is go to the government, and of course that's not always the most arm's-length relationship. So it does speak to needing that civilian oversight at some point.

But I would be very comfortable with this, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, and I think it's a common-sense way to go. We can still take the step afterwards if we need to.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

If I'm hearing correctly, what we're heading towards is that in the motion, this first bullet remains, and the second, third, and fourth bullets are replaced with the following: “That the clerk be instructed to subpoena or ask the Acting Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Chief of Police of the City of Ottawa to provide full and frank answers as to the circumstances surrounding this event.”

Okay, that's an amendment. I sense there is some consensus. Is there any further discussion?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. There is one additional motion that I'm going to deal with.

I'm sorry, witnesses, this shouldn't take a long time.

Colleagues, these are the minutes of the standing committee's subcommittee on agenda and procedure, which have been circulated. There are two paragraphs.

The proposed schedule was circulated. It does change every now and then, but this is the direction that the steering committee has instructed the committee clerk to take.

The second item is in follow-up to the Place Victoria issue. We discussed this, and there was concern as to the answers we were getting on the side of the economic development department. First we invited Mr. André Gladu, the agency's former deputy minister and accounting officer, to provide a letter and also come as a witness to the committee. Monsieur Gladu is now retired, but again that's the way the committee wants to proceed.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I have one question, Mr. Chairman. How soon is the Auditor General bringing down a status report?

[Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

A week from tomorrow.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

A week tomorrow. Okay. So I presume we'll have more things to look at. Who can tell?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You never know, Mr. Williams. Everything might be perfect.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I'm a realist, Mr. Chairman; they'll always find something.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. Everyone has the minutes? All in favour of the minutes as circulated?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Now we are going to proceed to the agenda, the inquiry into the leaks of the Auditor General's reports.

Members of the committee, we have with us Sheila Fraser, our Auditor General, who is accompanied by Ronnie Campbell, Assistant Auditor General.

From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Brian Aiken, the chief audit executive.

From Public Works and Government Services, we have Daphne Meredith, associate deputy minister.

From the Treasury Board Secretariat, we have Mr. Alister Smith, assistant secretary, corporate priorities, planning and policy renewal sector; and we have Coleen Volk, assistant deputy minister of corporate services.

I want to welcome each of you to the committee.

Again, the committee takes this very seriously. It's the second time this has happened in less than a year. I'm not totally convinced that we're going to get to the bottom of it, but we want to assure ourselves that the proper procedures are being put in place and that we don't have a third hearing in six months' time.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

We could always just call—[Inaudible--Editor]—Mr. Chairman. That way, we wouldn't ever have a hearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We could go to the next matter, yes.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Yes, just come clean and tell us who done it, and we'd be out of here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Nobody has a hand up, so we'll have to go through the hearing.

So I understand, Mrs. Fraser, that you have some opening comments, and I turn the floor over to you.

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, I do. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for this opportunity to address the issue of our reports being leaked to the media before being tabled in the House of Commons.

As you mentioned, I am accompanied today by Ronnie Campbell, Assistant Auditor General.

As this committee knows, I take my relationship with Parliament very seriously. My office takes every reasonable step to ensure that our reports are not disclosed to the public before they are tabled in the House of Commons. Premature disclosure represents a disregard for the statutory right of the House of Commons to receive our reports and may represent a breach of parliamentary privilege.

Since 2001, 10 performance audit reports were leaked to journalists before they were tabled in the House of Commons. Although they represent a small portion of the 147 performance audit reports that we presented during this period, 10 leaks are still too many.

When we appeared before the committee on this matter on May 15, I outlined the safeguards we had in place to protect the confidentiality of our reports, and I do not want to take up the committee's time by going into those details again today.

I would simply like to remind you that we provide draft reports to the departments and agencies to validate facts, present our observations and recommendations, and give the departments and agencies the opportunity to prepare a response which will be published in the final version of the report. This is a critical stage of the audit process, but it clearly has some risks.

As part of our internal review of the most recent leak, we analyzed the article about the relocation chapter published in the Globe and Mail on November 8, 2006. The article appears to cite information from a number of sources: our draft chapter, information that is publicly available, and an unidentified source who appears to be familiar with the content of our report and the government's response to it.

As if often the case, it is not clear whether the Globe and Mail reporter saw a copy of the draft report or was verbally briefed on its contents. After this most recent incident, we reviewed our process with the RCMP, who had no recommendations for improvement.

We are satisfied that our processes are appropriate, and we do not believe that the leak came from our office. Nonetheless, we recognize that leaks—deliberate or inadvertent—are not acceptable.

Mr. Chair, we are taking further steps to ensure that the departments and agencies that are the subjects of our audits are following appropriate procedures to protect the confidentiality of our reports. During each audit, we will be writing to senior officials to remind them of their responsibility to follow appropriate procedures to protect the confidentiality of our reports. And we will not release draft chapters to departments until we have received written acknowledgement of these responsibilities. We hope these additional measures will make a difference in safeguarding the information in our reports. We are deeply concerned about this situation and we are prepared to take any practical steps to help resolve the issue.

That concludes our opening statement, Mr. Chair. We would be pleased to answer any questions committee members may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Fraser.

Mr. Smith, I understand you have some opening remarks. I have a copy here. They look rather lengthy. I'm going to give you five minutes. But if you don't conclude them, they will be part of the evidence and part of the blues of this hearing.

[Alister Smith, Assistant Secretary, Corporate Priorities, Planning and Policy Renewal Sector, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by stating clearly that we take this matter very seriously. We are very concerned about any leaks of sensitive information.

Maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of the work of the Auditor General is important, not just to the Auditor General and to Parliament but also to the government. That's why we conducted thorough internal reviews. Before sharing with you the main findings of our internal reviews, let me clarify that we conducted two separate reviews. After the leak of a chapter of the May report, the Auditor General asked departments to conduct individual reviews of document controls. Subsequently, after the leak of a chapter from the November report, the secretariat was asked by the President of the Treasury Board to conduct a review of document controls across the five departments that received draft chapters.

The key findings of our November review were that departments are confident they had in place the appropriate processes and controls to ensure the confidentiality of the draft chapters received from the Auditor General. Departments remind employees who are involved in the audit process, on a regular basis, of the responsibilities for ensuring that the work of the Auditor General needs to be protected. And departments are also putting in place additional measures to strengthen controls.

In short, the departments were confident that they followed the appropriate procedures to protect the confidentiality of draft chapters received from the office of the Auditor General.

Common controls in place in departments include having a central control point to manage documents, measures to control transmission of these documents, and procedures to store documents as well as to recall them.

In terms of the details of the review—and I will be brief, given the time and the fact that I've handed out my remarks—the first review was launched in June 2006 at the request of the Office of the Auditor General and was conducted by individual departments. The second review was launched in late November at the request of the former President of the Treasury Board. The second review was an interdepartmental review, led by the secretariat. It involved the five departments that had accessed the draft chapter of the AG's report on the integrated relocation program.

Both reviews focused on document controls and procedures and on reminding employees of their obligations. Our examination focused in particular on whether the requirements for protected A information—which is a classification assigned to draft Auditor General chapters—were being respected. “Protected A” means that the drafts are considered sensitive and are distributed on a need-to-know basis within departments.

As part of that second review, departments were asked specifically about the receipt and sign-in procedures for documents received; the transmission of these documents; their physical storage; and their recall, return, or destruction. Departments were also asked to identify any actions they were taking to strengthen the security procedures.

In summary, Mr. Chair, we have conducted thorough internal reviews of the processes and procedures. We are confident that we have the controls and procedures required for protected A information, and we will continue to make employees aware of their responsibilities.

In conclusion, I would like to underscore the fact that the government takes the protection of confidential information as a very serious matter.

We're committed to striking the right balance between having the appropriate document controls to ensure the security and confidentiality of the work of the Auditor General and maintaining the operational efficiency of the audit process. We have worked and will continue to work with the Auditor General and her team to achieve these objectives.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Smith, for those remarks.

We only have time for one round. What I propose to do, members, is have one round of five minutes each.

Mr. Rodriguez, for five minutes.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Auditor General.

You indicated that, out of 147 reports, 10 had been leaked. I find that surprising. It seems like a lot. I am not an expert, but 10 out of 147 amounts to 7%.

[Sheila Fraser]

I obviously do not have any statistics to say—

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I simply wanted to say that I am surprised.

You outlined a number of protection safeguards when you appeared on May 15. I understand that you do not want to repeat them because that would take up a lot of time. However, for the sake of the new members on the committee, what are the principal safeguards?

[Sheila Fraser]

Our procedures deal mainly with the physical security of our document. We have a process by which draft reports are numbered. We have a register of all the copies sent to the departments. Once an audit is complete, we ask that all copies be returned to us or that departments, or agencies, give us assurances that the copies have been destroyed. There is also a provision that certain protected documents should not be photocopied.

I want committee members to understand that this is really about the physical security of documents. It is difficult to know whether the journalists really had a copy of the document. I am inclined to think rather that someone had information and shared it with a journalist.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

You also said that draft reports are sent to departments and agencies to get their observations. Do you think that that is where part of the leak came from?