Public Accounts Committee on June 9th, 2009

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have another question, and several are coming to mind. I will get back to that.

Can you expand and give us some details as regards this fund? How long have you been using this cost and operating model? How much money do you accumulate from one year to the next?

My questions have to do with the 10-year passport. I know the deadline is in 2011. Would it be possible to expedite things?

[Christine Desloges]

You are referring to an announcement made in 2008 regarding a 10-year electronic passport which will be available by the end of 2011. We do however need to carry out due diligence, because there is the procurement aspect that needs to be addressed as well as a "contracting" aspect, and it must be done diligently.

Preliminary work has begun, and we are confident that we will be able to make the electronic passport available by the end of 2011.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Very well. So, you are currently addressing issues relating to contracts and technology procurement.

[Christine Desloges]

As you know, we operate on a cost-recovery basis. Therefore we must really ensure that we are using the funds we manage appropriately and that we have done our planning rigorously to obtain optimal results.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Do I still have some time left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Two minutes.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I know that the online form service has been suspended. Do you intend to reinstate this type of service?

[Christine Desloges]

That was the Passport On-line service. In fact, there was an online form. The two bar code form is more intuitive. Only 1% of our customers were using the online form.

Since we introduced the new form, two months ago, 26% of our consumers have been using it. To me, the real test is the ease of use. Naturally, we are always seeking to better serve Canadians and will continue to try more intuitive solutions which should also help us reduce the error rate.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I have one final question regarding online forms and secure technology.

Is your organization a client of the protected shared services project? If so, do you have a business plan, a profitability study?

[Christine Desloges]

We are not clients of that service. However, we could give you an answer a little later; we could check into it.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Ms. Faille.

Mr. Christopherson, you have seven minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for your attendance today.

Again, in recapping, we've had audits in 2005, 2007, and 2009. I've been here for each one. I remember the 2005 report when there were initial problems around security, which really shook us all up. That was the big one there. There was a myriad of other problems.

The 2007 report showed that for the most part there was satisfactory progress, but there were still a couple of areas where they had not yet resolved issues found in the 2005 audit. Our big concern at that time, as the chair has said, was the crisis that was created in 2007, and that was a disaster. That was just a major ganging up, quite frankly, by all of us. The criticisms were well deserved. It was a nightmare.

Now we have this audit that comes along, and I have to say that I'm very pleased with what we're finding here, I really am. I am often critical of what agencies and departments say in their reports about how wonderful things are, so you took a bit of a risk by saying, “You may recall the long line-ups, the disgruntled applicants, the long processing times and the general frustration that resulted as Canadians applied for passports in record numbers.” It's refreshing because it's true, so thank you for that.

You say that radical changes have indeed been made since that time. That's a high standard, and we would expect you to live up to that. I think you have.

So overall, I just want to say how pleased I am with the process, the Auditor General, the timeliness.... It's such a huge organization, but to do the one in 2005, which was very timely, then to go back two years later on to do the follow-up, and another two years later to see where that's at, kudos to the Auditor General for her management planning and staying on top of this.

To the agency, you've done a really good job. It sometimes breaks my heart to say that, because I love a good fight--

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

--and I like finding problems. That's what we do in the fourth party, you know. There aren't a lot of cabinet meetings to go to.

So this takes away a lot of my momentum, but I'll give credit where credit is due, and you did a really good job.

[John Cannis, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'd tape that, by the way.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You want to talk about tapes?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Anyway, there is one area, however, just so we don't get too far into the clouds here.

But I do want to say congratulations. You listened. You acted. It's been verified. To me, that's the way the system should work. There were problems found, but that's part of the system too. I really am impressed and pleased.

I do want to go to one area. I would ask the AG to comment, and if there's time, obviously, have the agency comment. In her report, the Auditor General, in addition to giving praise, if you will, says, “At the time of our audit, however, detailed planning was still underway” with regard to some of the plans “and, in our opinion, critical gaps remained”. We can't afford not to spend some time focusing on that--but in the context of a job well done.

Perhaps you would comment, AG, on what those critical gaps are, and then we could hear what the agency is doing about it.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

I will just recall for members that this audit was completed in September, so it was many months before the June 1 deadline.

We saw that there was a contingency plan in place, but it was broad and was still at a fairly high level. The agency was working on it at that point, but we really thought there needed to be more specifics about when some of the contingency plans would be triggered. Some would be able to be done fairly easily, perhaps by extending hours, but if it involved hiring people and training them, that could involve several months' delay. So what would trigger having to hire people? We understand from the action plan and certainly from what has been said today that those details have been put in place, and the agency does have that detail trigger there.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

It doesn't get much better.

I'm done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Mr. Saxton, you have seven minutes.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is clearly a good-news story, and I echo my colleague's praises of both the Auditor General and the agency for their good work. I can tell you that to get praise from Mr. Christopherson is not a common occurrence. So you should be proud of that fact.

I was pleased to see that the minister responded to this committee and has taken action to ensure that Passport Canada is ready for this new phase of the western hemisphere travel initiative.

How ready is Passport Canada? Do you expect the long lineups we had a couple of years ago to be there next time?

[Leonard Edwards]

Mr. Chairman, I think my statement and that of Madam Desloges' in a way answered your question.

We certainly feel that the staffing levels, the systems that have been in place, the improvements we've made in processing, the new print plant, and so forth have positioned us to be able to deal with any growth in demand. In fact we are capable of meeting that demand, and we have certain redundancies in the system right now anticipating it.

I think what we've seen, though, so far anyway, is that the major levels of applications that we had anticipated haven't come to pass. We've still seen, as Madam Desloges said, 25,000 applications over the last day or so, which is a significant number of applications. I think we're pretty close to half a million passports since the start of the year. So you can see that going to the passport for ground travel into the United States is having its impact.

Frankly, we are capable of handling a larger demand than even that. So I can say with considerable confidence as deputy minister that I feel pretty sure Passport Canada can meet that demand.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

I have a question now for the Auditor General.

In your opinion, Ms. Fraser, is the action plan, with its resulting triggers, a good model for other departments to follow? What lessons have we learned from Passport Canada that we can recommend to other departments?