Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 5th, 2011

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

Okay, thank you very kindly.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Over to Mr. Angus.

You have the floor, sir.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

This has been an excellent discussion, and I'm very pleased that you have clarified the role of our civil servants and the excellent work our civil servants do. We certainly are pleased that we have a very clear picture of their role and that they have acted appropriately.

It seems wherever we come on this, though, we keep falling down into this black hole of lack of accountability, where it all went wrong, and it continues to fall back to the member from Parry Sound, Tony Clement, who did not provide you with the documents and who made the selection process outside the bureaucracy. Do you believe it's important to have bureaucratic oversight for programs such as this giant, double hockey arena that he passed off as a media centre? Would that have changed if there had been bureaucrats involved?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, I believe there is an appropriate role, an important role, that officials can play in the administration of programs like this. I wouldn't characterize it as an oversight. I believe the role of the officials is to ensure that transparency and accountability and due diligence exist in the selection of the projects for funding.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

So they were deliberately removed from the process for reasons that we still have not had a clear answer on.

I'd like to ask about this internal review audit because our documents show that they were concerned. There was an internal review document at Infrastructure Canada that actually suspended the spending until they could find out how the money was being spent. Mr. Clement said that he was working on it. Now, that wasn't his department. Would it be very unusual for a minister to tell local officials that he would be intervening in order to find out what's going on in an internal audit in another department?

[John Wiersema]

I’ll perhaps ask Ms. Loschiuk to clarify, but I'm not aware that Infrastructure Canada has done an internal audit.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You've said that, but our documents show that they had begun an internal audit, and Mr. Clement said it was unacceptable and he was working on it. So an internal audit wasn't done. We're not sure how that was stopped, but our documents show that he was informed that an internal audit had taken place.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

A point of order. I think Mr. Angus is leading the witness. He's trying to get something--

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

This isn't a court.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Order, please.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

This isn't Perry Mason.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Order.

I hear your point of order. I don't agree with the point of order.

You are just about out of time, Mr. Angus, so if you could wrap up...and a short response, please.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I turn it over to you, Mr. Wiersema.

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of the specific documentation the member refers to, so I don't feel comfortable commenting on documentation that I don't have in front of me and that I don't recall having seen. I'm prepared to pursue it with the member outside this meeting if he would like.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Very good. Thank you both.

Ms. Bateman, you have the floor.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Through the chair, just a question to clarify

for my colleague, Mr. Caron.

You were talking about the internal audit, albeit a hypothetical one, and that you weren't aware of subsequent internal audits. If you could clarify...because I so appreciate the comments you made earlier about the positive improvements that have occurred in the Government of Canada—particularly since your last review in 2004—the substantive changes. This is good management practice, this is good for transparency, and this is good for the public and for government itself.

I'm curious. You don't receive all the internal audits, do you? You audit on a test basis. You don't have resources to look at every internal audit, so it would be quite normal, I think. It seems abnormal for you to not see the internal audit, but there are probably all kinds of internal audits you don't see. Am I correct? I'm just curious.

[John Wiersema]

Yes, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, the member is correct. There are dozens if not hundreds of internal audits conducted in government each year. In many cases, we work with those internal auditors. We need that work to help us with our work, but we do not get involved with every single one of those internal audits.

I would say, however, that the government's policy on internal audit requires that all finalized internal audit reports be transparently disclosed on the website. We don't look at them all there either. We don't have the capacity to look at them all, but all completed internal audits, under government policy, are posted on departmental websites.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you very much for that clarification. The more, the better, in my view. Is that a reasonable assessment? Internal audit strengthens the process, strengthens the management processes?

[John Wiersema]

Asking an auditor if more audits are a good thing, Mr. Chairman....

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

It takes one to know one!

[John Wiersema]

I'll stop there, Mr. Chairman.

[Joyce Bateman, Conservative, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

We're out of time on that round, so nice ending.

The last speaker for today's hearing will be Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thank you. It was getting lonely there for a while, Mr. Chair.

I hope this committee reflects on the perspectives and the wisdom that was offered by the interim Auditor General in terms of our selection of chapters, of issues, that we study.

I hope we do not move in camera while we do that, Mr. Chair. I hope we have an open and transparent discussion as to what exactly we should discuss, but I hope we operate on the basis that we will look at everything, that we'll try to budget time, but everything is available to us and that there will be no closure on the types of issues that we as a committee will look at. I'm sure the public will be interested to see what we produce at the end of the meeting in terms of our agenda going forward.

I want to move very quickly.

You've outlined, Mr. Wiersema, a very stark circumstance regarding first nations on reserve. You have indicated to us, to Parliament, through your report that anything less than a legislative base in response to some of these issues will probably not produce the required results. Would that be a fair categorization? In terms of a government response to this issue, you're looking for a legislative basis on which to respond to some of these key issues.

[John Wiersema]

I would prefer to characterize it the way we've characterized it in our report, Mr. Chairman, that in our opinion one of the structural impediments to significant fundamental change that Mr. Campbell referred to that's needed here is the absence of a legislative basis for many of the services provided. I'd prefer to characterize it as a structural impediment.