Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 5th, 2011

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

Thank you. Certainly, a quick question and a quick answer.

This isn't the House of Commons because we're finally getting some answers.

I have to correct something. It was the G-8 summit liaison and implementation team that involved Tony Clement, the mayor of Huntsville, and the manager of the Deerhurst inn. We received those documents through the municipality.

You asked to find out where documents were and you were told that none existed. The one federal element in this is Mr. Clement, who was at those meetings, who made decisions, and who did not give you those documents. We had to find them through a freedom of information request and through the municipalities. Is that not correct?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

A short answer, please.

[John Wiersema]

I don't know how the documents were subsequently made public, but many of the documents that the member refers to were not available to us during the audit. They have their origins in municipal governments.

I have another brief comment, if I may, Mr. Chairman. As we indicated in the report, the ultimate decisions as to which of the 32 projects were recommended to go forward was made by the former Minister of Infrastructure on the basis of a recommendation of the former Minister of Industry.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you both.

Moving back to the government benches, Mr. Shipley, you now have the floor.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I also want to commend Mr. Wiersema, who hoped to retire earlier in the summer, but he is carrying on in the office as the interim Auditor General. I want to thank you for your years of service, not only what you have done prior, but filling that gap until the new Auditor General is selected. Thank you very much.

I'd like to go to some of the comments. It talks about "funds used for intended purposes”. Obviously they're talking about G-8 and G-20:

We found the sampled transactions were for expenses incurred as a result of summit activities for security and organization and hosting. Further, we found that these transactions were consistent with the plans and budgets for which funding was approved.

I think what you were saying in your comments earlier is that the government got what it paid for. In terms of some of the comments from across, there seems to be a desire to generate that there must be some criminal activity happening here. As we all know, that is not the case.

We heard day after day about how bad it was to spend the $1.1 billion on a conference that had never before been held with the G-8 and G-20 together. What we found—and some of us may criticize this—is that actually it's not $1.1 billion, it's $664 million, which was about 61% of the approved funding.

It would appear that not only did the government get what it paid for, it would appear that the government did well in what it got in terms of the allocation of funds. It went through the estimates. A minority government, quite honestly, couldn't approve it without the support of others. It went through Parliament.

Then it talks about “the exception of a lack of an overall assessment”. We agree. I think that's what this committee is actually for, and we've always supported it as a government. If there's something wrong, let's deal with it, because whatever that department or that ministry is, it should be accountable.

It would appear to me that there has been a lack of procedural process that's been followed or a process that is not in place.

You say at the end, in one of the responses, that the Treasury Board has responded, and the secretariat agrees with our recommendation about the process. Is that true?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, I believe the member is quoting from chapter 1 of our report, which deals with the overall G-8 and G-20 summits, the funding requests, and the planning for this project. The key issue the member is alluding to that we included in our report has to do with how those funding requests were presented to Parliament. Two separate years, 14 departments, multiple requests--it would have been almost impossible for Parliament to figure out exactly how much funding was being asked for, for these two summits. So we recommended that there should be some sort of aggregate reporting of the funding requests for initiatives this big.

I believe the government has agreed with that. I believe as well that it has been discussed by one of your sister committees, another committee of the House of Commons. The government operations and estimates committee has looked at this, and as I recall, there's a recommendation coming from that committee that for initiatives like this, exceeding $500 million, there should be consolidated reporting to Parliament, and I believe that's a sound recommendation as well.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Just a quick question. You said it was so big that maybe it was hard to put it all together to understand. Did anyone ask a question about that? Did any of the critics or any of the finance people in the other parties, even the leaders, say this was really complex, they had too many things coming at them, and they didn't understand it?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, it would be very hard for me to respond definitively on that question. Was it ever asked inside or outside the House of Commons? I follow Hansard, but I wouldn't be able to say I follow it closely enough to say definitively the question was or was not asked.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

But in all your investigations—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Sorry, that's time.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, I totally respect your time.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. I even let a little extra go there, as I have with some others. I hope that flexibility is acceptable to the committee.

Finally, over to the Liberals for a speaking spot.

Mr. Byrne, you have the floor, sir.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As you noted, I have precious little time to be able to ask questions. The providence of the committee has decided to change the normal standard of what would be considered from a majority government. The practices of this committee, from a majority government till today, are quite different, so I have limited time.

With limited time, I want to take some time to say thank you. You've had 34 years in the Office of the Auditor General. You've served this Parliament and this committee with wisdom, and your advice is appreciated.

With that said, I'll get right to my question.

Expediency. The government has suggested that its contrition for its shortcomings was caused by the need for expediency, yet we know that the 2010 Muskoka summit was planned for, implementation began, and things were well under way one and a half years before the actual summit.

In your professional experience, having 34 years within the Office of the Auditor General, could something have been done within that 18-month timeframe to put in place the financial authority to ask cabinet and Treasury Board and to seek approval through the supplementary estimates for the financial authority to engage in these projects?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, the short answer to that is yes. I think the government could have been transparent in its request to Parliament for funding to clearly indicate the funds were intended for the legacy fund. That is not complex or difficult to sort out.

And I believe it would have been quite possible for the government to implement a process for selecting the projects that respected the government's policy on the administration of transfer payments, and that would have involved public servants. I believe public servants have a role to play here. They could have supported the government in the selection of those projects and ensured that the government's rules were respected. That was not the case in this particular situation. I believe both of those things are not hard to fix.

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

Thank you very much.

Mentioning funds used for intended purposes, how would you categorize the value of these projects for what Parliament approved them for, which was border infrastructure? Was there a value to border infrastructure from these projects?

[John Wiersema]

Clearly, Mr. Chairman, the projects that were funded here had very little, if anything, to do with border infrastructure.

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

So Parliament did not get what it paid for and what it approved, in other words?

[John Wiersema]

The funding request was submitted for border infrastructure; it was used for the G-8 legacy fund.

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

Thank you very much.

It strikes me that increased comptrollership improvements to the internal audit functions were not able to pick these things up. In fairness, they were probably not designed to do that. Would you be able to inform the committee as to whether or not the government, in this act of contrition, noting its failures and shortcomings here, has communicated to you and your office any specific measure, standard, or procedure that it is now instituting across government to prevent this from happening again?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, I don't think this is a situation that requires more rules. I believe the rules are there. This office has taken the position in the past, and I absolutely support that position, that we don't need more rules. What we need is consistent application of the existing rules. I'm not waiting for the government to say it put a new rule and procedure into place, because I don't think it's necessary in this case.

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

Thank you very much.

It is very important, and I think you may agree with this statement, that Parliament does have an oversight role to play in this and that the Office of the Auditor General has a role to play in this.

It's why I'm going to shift here slightly. With the public accounts committee itself, and other government operations and oversight committees, it would seem very important to me as a member of this committee that we have an unfettered hand at being able to look at all reports of the Auditor General. Would you have noted—and I'm sure you would note this—that the committee is the master of its own hand? There are other reports that were tabled by the previous auditors general that have not yet been reviewed. Are any reports less important than the others, or should we as a committee at least give serious consideration not only to reviewing all reports but at least taking the opportunity, as in past practice, to review reports from a previous Parliament as well?

[John Wiersema]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.

As the member has indicated, I need to state up front that the committee clearly determines for itself how it wishes to operate and which reports it wishes to study. It has been the practice of this committee in the past, when there is a change in Parliament, to bring forward unfinished business from previous committees, and in particular where the committee has had hearings and studied particular auditors general's reports and has not yet had an opportunity to report to the House of Commons. My understanding is that the practice has been that those reports have been brought forward to the committee in the subsequent Parliament.

I believe that to be a best practice. I belive that is a practice that is followed by public accounts committees across the country and internationally, as a good practice. I believe as well that it provides a basis for this committee to follow up on the findings of the work of this committee, as well as the Auditor General's office, in determining what subsequent corrective action has been taken.

We state, Mr. Chairman, that it's up to this committee to determine what it studies and how it proceeds, but I believe the past practices of the committees to be best practice.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Mr. Byrne, your time has expired. Sorry.

We are now moving back to the Conservative Party benches.

Ms. Bateman, you have the floor now.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It is an honour to be here. It is a very great honour for me to be here in this position, because I once worked for your wonderful organization.

I have a few questions. The opposition has been harping about various e-mails, both municipal and personal. In fact, we have a substitute member from the opposition here today for that very purpose--to draw attention.

Now, sir, the municipal e-mails and documents that have been provided by the member opposite, would they have changed your audit opinion? You have seen them now. Do you feel you have to go back and change your audit opinion?