Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 28th, 2009

[Cassie Doyle]

Yes, I have.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you have a point of order?

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Yes. It just has to do with the record.

Earlier in the questioning, I'm sure quite inadvertently, in one of his questions Mr. Weston had a preamble saying that if you don't know how many of your managers can approve contracts...when he had previously asked how many managers were in a position to approve contracts.

We never gave the witness an opportunity to give the answer, because Mr. Weston said it doesn't matter how many. I didn't want the record to close without recognizing that the witness probably knows exactly how many of her managers have authority to approve contracts; we just never gave her the chance to do the head count.

In fact, we probably don't need to know. I just didn't want to leave the throw-away remark there that she didn't know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Well, Mr. Lee, since you brought it up, although it may not be relevant, I'll ask the witnesses, either Ms. Buckley or Ms. Doyle, if they want to answer the question, whether they have the information. If they don't, I don't think it's that relevant.

[Cassie Doyle]

The office of energy efficiency is one of our primary areas to have responsibility for contributions and grants, and certainly the director general will know how many in the office of energy efficiency. For the balance of the department, Mr. Chair, I'd have to get back to you with the exact number.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I don't want to know.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I don't think we need that information.

Do you have anything to add, Ms. Buckley?

[Carol Buckley]

Mr. Chair, I feel embarrassed; I don't know the exact number. What I do know is that it's mandatory in the office of energy efficiency for all officers at any level who manage or are involved in contribution agreements to have training on contribution agreements, and that this is updated frequently. In fact, we have piloted some of the new training that has become available.

I have that information in my office. I just don't have it off the top of my head. I'd be happy to supply it if required.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Weston, do you have a point of order?

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

The point of the exchange was just to ensure that there is training available to those identified as being in the position of letting or implementing contracts. I think we've received a satisfactory answer, so thank you to both guests.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. That concludes the rounds, colleagues.

I'm going to invite the witnesses to make their closing remarks, but just before I do, I want to point out to you, Ms. Doyle, a little trivia. I've been sitting around the table for nine years now. I've probably seen and heard and read more than one human being should in a lifetime, and any time we get into a problem like this, I always ask the question about sanctions.

The answers until today have always been that there are no sanctions and sanctions were not considered. So I'm not batting a thousand anymore; you struck me out. My record until today was a thousand.

Having said that, we're going to invite the witnesses to make their closing comments.

Ms. Fraser, we'll go first to you.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the committee for their interest in this report. We think the whole question of conflicts of interest is an important one, and as I mentioned, we will be doing an audit specifically on that issue for tabling next year.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Fraser.

Ms. Doyle, do you have any closing comments?

[Cassie Doyle]

I want to thank the committee members for all of their questions and assure you that we in the department have put a huge effort into addressing the situation that arose between 2003 and 2005, and we've addressed it on a number of fronts.

You can look at these matters through a number of different lenses: through conflict of interest or through risk management. I feel that we have, until the Auditor General's report, covered these bases from the perspective of risk management. We will now have expanded and have learned from the Auditor General's report and we have now made specific reference to conflict of interest.

We appreciate the interest of the committee, and I feel that for everyone in the department it has been a tremendous learning experience. We have now positioned ourselves in a place such that we can feel a very high level of confidence in the way we administer a very large amount of taxpayers' money.

So thank you very much for your interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank all the witnesses for their appearance here today. The committee will obviously be writing a report and filing it with Parliament.

This should only take 30 seconds, so instead of having the witnesses leave, before we adjourn I'd like to have colleagues adopt the minutes of the steering committee.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

There is just a typo in the motion. To address the situation that we're dealing with, we would eliminate from findings recommendations that have been accepted by the department or agency. It's a clarification. It's not a typo; it's a clarification.

Everyone has seen it and it has been moved.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

It is after five o'clock. The bells will be at 5:15, so I am going to adjourn the meeting and thank the witnesses again.

The meeting is adjourned.