Public Accounts Committee on March 11th, 2010

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

I'm on the same issue. As I look at the inventory of the work in progress, as I look at the fall 2009 report, and as I look at what may be coming up this spring, we have stuff in the inventory going back to 2007. You can call it a backlog, but I'm concerned about the inventory. I don't suppose it ever gets stale on this committee, but it's really getting long in the tooth. In terms of the currency of our work, I just get a sense that we're always going to be working on backlogged stuff going back two or three years.

Perhaps this should go to steering committee. I'd like to recommend, or encourage the committee, that we try to get the backlog brought up a bit closer to current, to 2010.

Those are my thoughts. Perhaps I'll take that up at steering committee, or the chair will ensure that it is.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

I understand the chair's and I think the committee's desire to move on to new work. I think that's fair ball. We all recognize that a lot of this stuff is dated. I really think that you would find a very serious willingness in this committee to, hopefully, expedite. We're not going to sit and drag out a report for three meetings. Let's just try to really get through them as quickly as possible.

Quite honestly, some of the reports aren't even relevant now. Let's just get at it, clean them up, and get on. Then we can get back to our serious work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I haven't heard anything I disagree with.

For the benefit of new members, I would just point out that in terms of the backlog, we've seen a lot worse. I've seen us stacked up so far that you couldn't even see yesterday. In the past, while we were playing catch-up, we tried not to allow ourselves to fall behind with something new. Where possible, as I recall, we would try to do a new one, an old one, and then, as Mr. Kramp and others have suggested, we'd try to expedite the report writing on two or three. That kind of exercise usually, if we got a good, sustained run for a couple of months, allowed us to catch right back up.

So while we're on the brink of being in trouble, I just want to say to members that from my experience on this committee it can be a lot worse. The thing is to jump on it now, and we'll be okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Madam Faille.

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

What I wanted to say is that, as Mr. Christopherson mentioned, the committee has gone through much more difficult times in terms of catching up. We have two reports from 2007, but the other reports are from April or May 2009. Given the committee's experience, we are not that far behind. As Mr. Christopherson mentioned, we could start a new one and work quietly on reducing the backlog by doing an old one and a new one as the work of the committee continues. If we spend next week studying the reports we have in front of us... I do not think any of them are big issues. After two work sessions, we might be surprised to see that we have done a good job catching up with the reports.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Actually, I don't think we're into a heavy dispute here. We can work this way forward.

I actually like Mr. Lee's thought of just taking it to steering committee, working it through, and doing it. It's really not a problem; whether we go two to one, one to one, three to one, we'll find a way to make this thing happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

As I indicated, I fully expect that the first two will most likely be drafting of reports, for the reason that it would be impossible to schedule witnesses.

So the motion required would be that chapters 1, 2, 3, and 5 be taken back by the committee to be dealt with as soon as possible in this session. It is so moved by Madam Faille. All in favour?

(Motion agreed to)

The motion passes unanimously.

Next we have a couple of other items. Sometime during April or May, as we do each and every year, we will be devoting a hearing to dealing with estimates. With one exception, this committee does not deal with estimates in any form, and that is the estimates arising from the Office of the Auditor General.

So we will have a meeting sometime between now and the end of May dealing with the estimates from that office, but at that same meeting we will also deal with the departmental reports on plans and priorities and the departmental performance reports from that particular office. That will be scheduled at some time by the clerk. I just point that out. That's in the mix that we do each and every year. Of course, it has to be approved by the steering committee, but that's a pretty standard meeting of the committee.

For the next one that will require a motion, this has been in the works for about a year and a half. Because there has been much discussion about the quality of the departmental performance reports, we decided we would take two departmental performance reports and have a hearing on the departmental performance reports. We decided to do that, we waited until they were filed, and we chose two departments from a hat, the Department of Transport and the Department of Industry, and that was actually going to be scheduled in February of this year.

Of course, it was delayed because of prorogation, so I would recommend that this hearing or issue be brought back before this committee with the same two departments and that we do this subject to availability and at the clerk's discretion in scheduling.

So moved by Mr. Christopherson. Are there any questions?

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

Are you saying that we're going to dedicate a meeting or a series of meetings to this line of inquiry?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

It's one meeting.

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

For both departments? And that meeting would be scheduled between now and June?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, hopefully.

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

Shouldn't we fold this into our discussion of all of the other business, including the 2007 stuff and the stuff from a year ago? Shouldn't the steering committee take that up? Unless, if members want to bite the bullet on this one...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The steering committee could always come back with a recommendation that we take it off.

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

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Another issue that I just want to....

Oh, that wasn't voted on. All in favour of that motion?

(Motion agreed to)

The other issue that I will point out is just for informational purposes. The Office of the Auditor General is in the process of undergoing an international peer review, which is done every six or seven years by a number of international audit departments. It's being led by the Australian audit department.

The two members of that audit department were before the committee for one hour back in November, I think it was, just to set out the terms of reference or the frame of reference of the international peer review. The auditor indicates that she thinks this will be available sometime in June.

I think it behooves us to have another hearing on it, with a report on the actual peer review, but that will probably be a September issue by the time it gets done. Then we will have a hearing devoted to the international peer review. It's an audit of the audit department.

That's just for information purposes. It will come back before the steering committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The clerk has asked for a little more clarification. On the future agenda of the committee, we seem to have it all laid out and we'll be meeting next Tuesday at our normal time of nine o'clock. It would be very difficult to envisage having a hearing on that date, because today is Thursday and it would be next Tuesday. So I would suggest--and if anyone disagrees, please speak up--that next Tuesday, March 16, be devoted to drafting reports. And after that, given that we do have a number of reports and because of the tightness of time, perhaps we could also designate the meeting on Thursday, March 18, for the drafting of reports. And then we would ask the clerk to try to schedule a hearing for the following Tuesday, which would be March 23. Agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

What would be the date and time of the steering committee meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I was going to deal with that next.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

You're going to deal with that. Okay, fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Those are instructions from the committee to the clerk, and she will go ahead and do that.

Now, the next item that Mr. Christopherson brought up is that the steering committee, as I indicated, meets once a week. We have met Monday at noon and we have met Tuesday at noon. Don't forget that the time of the committee has changed. We're now meeting from nine to eleven. And I should point out that meetings will be over at eleven, because in normal circumstances there's another committee coming in for another meeting at eleven o'clock in the room that we have. So there'll be no 11:15 or 11:30 ending of the meeting.

I take it that the way the routine motions are is that the steering committee is comprised of the chairperson and one representative of all parties. So it doesn't make any difference who the representatives are. They are chosen by the parties.

Why don't you just let the clerk know who your representative is and we will try our very best to have a meeting of the steering committee next week. And perhaps if you know your representative, ask that person to stay here after the meeting and we can chat among ourselves and get everyone's schedule and come forward with a time that suits everyone.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Chair, again, Monday at noon worked the best, but I understand that Madame Faille had a problem last year, so we went with Tuesday. I don't know whether the Monday problem still exists for Madame Faille or not. It does? So by default I guess it's going to have to be Tuesday. Even though it's not ideal, we made it work last year.