The clerk's checking that.
Evidence of meeting #46 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cida.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #46 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cida.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I'll move a motion for unanimous consent to continue.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Well, we're going to ask the clerk to check that. That's a change in the Standing Orders. I didn't know that.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
You don't want to continue? These people came here today to talk to us.
It will take us two minutes to get there.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I have questions I want to ask them. Why are we doing this?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
The clerk has presented a copy of the new House of Commons Procedure and Practice, O'Brien and Bosc. I'll just quote it:
Pursuant to the Standing Orders, the Chair of a standing, special, legislative or joint committee is required to suspend the meeting when the bells are sounded to call in the Members to a recorded division in the House, unless there is unanimous consent of the members of the committee to continue to sit.
In this case, it's a 30-minute bell. I'm going to ask if there's unanimous consent. If there's not, then I'm going to have to follow the Standing Orders and suspend until the vote has been concluded and resume the meeting.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Just a question, Chair, a clarification.
You're seeking unanimous consent from the committee. If it's granted, then we would continue to meet for another 15 or 20 minutes--
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
And then we would adjourn and walk down the hall and vote. That's what you're seeking.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
That's what I'm seeking, Mr. Christopherson.
Is there unanimous consent to continue the meeting until five minutes before the vote?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
The rule is, Mr. Christopherson, I've asked for unanimous consent, and I do not have unanimous consent, so I have no authority to proceed any further.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
It's not a vote. It requires unanimous consent. I do not have unanimous consent.
3:55 p.m.
NDP
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It was the government members who don't want to extend so we can continue meeting? Is that the clarification that I needed, chair, that the government is denying this committee the right to continue meeting for who knows what political reason?
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Mr. Christopherson, the chair has seen members who were not in consent. According to the Standing Orders, the meeting will be suspended to allow members to vote. Once they vote, I would ask members to immediately come back to the meeting and we will resume.
The meeting is suspended.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
The meeting will resume.
When we left off, Ms. Crombie was the first member on round one, and she has two minutes left.
Ms. Crombie.
4:35 p.m.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I have two minutes left. Thank you very much. Let's get to it.
I want to go back to how you achieve your goals and how you know whether or not the goals are achieved and what the impact is on recipient governments and donors. Specifically, could we talk about how you know if a project is successful? What criteria do you use for evaluations? Also, how are projects monitored?
I don't want to get into the reporting-back structure, because I know that's very cumbersome. We can talk about that another time.
I just want to know how success is achieved--what milestones are reached, whether you look at benchmarks, etc. How are projects verified? Are there field visits, etc.?
4:35 p.m.
President, Canadian International Development Agency
Thank you.
On the basis of specific initiatives, each CIDA initiative--a project or a program-based approach--would have a clear statement of objectives it's trying to achieve. It would have a results framework, and it would be designed to achieve those results. There would be ongoing monitoring of the project while it's under way. The Auditor General's report said that's done very well. And once the project is completed, the performance of that of course would be reported out and there would be an evaluation.
Evaluations are done at CIDA. We do 100% evaluations. We have a strong track record and are deemed, in our management accountability framework, to have a very strong evaluation function. We are also considered to have a very strong results-based management framework within CIDA. In fact, other donors come to Canada to CIDA to understand how we do it.
So we do actually have an extremely strong results focus within the agency.
