Public Accounts Committee on May 7th, 2014

[Some hon. members]

Agreed

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

All right. Agreed.

We will begin. I have a speakers list, and kicking off today's discussion, Mr. Hayes.

You have the floor, sir.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, again.

I'm going to focus my questions on Correctional Service Canada, the penitentiary system. In paragraph 4.21 of your report, sir, you examined whether Correctional Service Canada has sufficient capacity to ensure safe and secure custody at each security level.

Did you audit safety statistics or conduct any review to determine the relationship between capacity and safety? Specifically, are you stating in any way that there is any relationship between double bunking and safety? Double bunking is mentioned a number of times in your report as well.

[Michael Ferguson]

The audit didn't specifically touch on that issue. However, we do say, in paragraph 19, that in 2009, Correctional Service Canada identified serious implications with double bunking, including increased levels of tension, aggression, and violence. It also identified increased safety and security concerns for staff and offenders. This was something that, in 2009, CSC identified was a risk that could be associated with double bunking.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

That's interesting, because there was a report on CBC in December 2013 that refuted that, indicating that prison violence was not linked to double bunking. But in the event that we do study this report more fully with officials, I guess we'll cross that path at that time.

Did you look at the types of facilities in terms of.... Let me give you an example: Yukon. That's what's referred to as a generation three facility that was built at a cost of $67 million and it was actually designed for double bunking. Many argue that double bunking is socially better than being in isolation.

Did you draw a relationship between the types of facilities? I think we understand that double bunking in a cell designed for one person might not be the best, but some facilities are designed specifically for double bunking.

[Michael Ferguson]

We looked at how Correctional Service Canada managed the expansion of its facilities, and they have policies about the level of double bunking that they consider to be acceptable. So we took that into account from the point of view of the system as a whole. But, again, the audit wasn't focusing on double bunking and its impact.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Your report states that in 2009 Correctional Service Canada received approval to spend $751 million over five years to expand existing institutions. They also received approval in principle to construct five new penitentiaries at a cost of $960 million.

Also, you note that in 2012 Correctional Service Canada recognized that its offender population had not grown as much as they had expected and they consequently returned $1.48 billion that was earmarked for construction, including funding for operations that had been set aside and for growth in the offender population that didn't occur.

As a matter of fact, in your report, Correctional Service Canada projected a growth from 14,200 in 2009 to 18,450 by March 2013. In fact, in March 2013 the population had increased only to 15,224, which is a dramatic shortage versus what had been projected.

Can you provide any insight as to how the officials underestimated this so much, or did officials provide an explanation to you as to why they underestimated the prison population so much?

[Michael Ferguson]

In terms of the specifics of how they did the calculation, that's something that Correctional Service Canada themselves would have to explain. However, we do indicate in paragraph 4.10 that they were estimating the large increase due to changes in sentencing legislation. They then determined that what they had expected to result from that hadn't occurred in terms of having an impact on their actual population. However, the details of the calculation would have to come from them.

[Bryan Hayes, Conservative, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Were any of your recommendations moving forward based on the projected population provided by Correctional Service Canada, which may not in fact materialize?

I ask because over the last four years, we're seeing an increase of 250 per year, and I believe I read in your report that there's a projected increase of 1,500 over the course of 2014-15.

Are you making recommendations based on that projected 1,500 population increase?

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly, we noted that they had overestimated the numbers in that original time period, and then they readjusted their estimates to a different way of estimating. Yes, we are looking at the fact that they now have new projections going forward.

As for the types of issues that we have raised regarding their having a long-term accommodation plan, whether that target number is reached within three or four years or five or six years won't necessarily change the recommendation, which is fundamentally to have a good long-term accommodation plan that looks at that growth and what types of facilities would be needed.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay, your time has expired.

Thank you to you both and moving over to Mr. Allen.

You have the floor, sir.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, chair, and thank you to the Auditor General and his team for being with us today.

In two different reports you raised the issue of the availability of information in two different ways. Could you walk us through that? I think one was a cabinet confidentiality issue and the other issue was you just didn't get the information.

Sir, could you highlight for us exactly how that works itself through? You make a request, then what happens in those two particular cases?

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly.

In general, we will set an audit objective. For example, in the chapter about aggressive tax planning the audit objective was to look at how the Department of Finance manages requests coming from the Canada Revenue Agency to make changes to legislation to deal with certain tax strategies.

We would have asked the Department of Finance for information about their process. They gave us an explanation of how the process works, but then they didn't give us any information that showed how they actually followed the process in the cases we were dealing with. So we would have explained to them exactly what we wanted and the type of evidence we were looking for. Then they would have gone through, looked at what they had available, and assessed it to determine whether it's cabinet confidence. In this case they determined it was cabinet confidence, which meant that we wouldn't get access to it. I think the other case was probably similar.

There is an agreement that says what type of information we do and do not have access to. Departments go through our requests, when we ask for something that is in specific types of documents, to determine whether it's in cabinet confidence documents. Once that decision is made, we obviously don't have access to the information.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

But my understanding is that you have a protocol in place now, and thus you understand the parameters you're working inside. So when you're asking for information, you don't actually ask for cabinet documents, because you know that you're not going to get them.

Was this troubling for you and for your department? Did you agree with them wholeheartedly and say: “Okay, you're absolutely right; we're not entitled to them, we're not going to...”? Or is there a remedy that you're seeking to try to get hold of information that you didn't get?

[Michael Ferguson]

What they said was that the information we were asking for was contained in cabinet confidence documents. You're right: we don't ask them to please give us information that's in cabinet confidence documents; we ask for information that helps us understand whether they did the steps that they said they should do. At the end, they go through the process, and there's not much else we can do on that front.

In this particular case, I guess I did find it a little surprising that the information that might exist about any analysis or consideration that was put to these requests was all contained in documents that would be considered cabinet confidence. But we have started some conversations with the Privy Council Office on this, and I think there may be some areas in which our agreement and our protocol needs to be clarified. I don't think I need at this point to bring the issue forward beyond what we can work through ourselves with the civil servants; I think we're okay on that front for now. But if it seems to be a problem, certainly we would then consider bringing the issue back.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Time runs short today, so let me just jump to the issue of long-term planning.

I notice in two of the reports, one on prisons and the other on pensions.... Let me take us back to the front page of your opening comments today, at the beginning of the meeting, and quote back to you your words about public sector pension plans:

...no one is responsible for carrying out a regular and systematic assessment of whether government of Canada pension plans are sustainable over the long term.

You also raised the issue, of course, in I think chapter 4 on prisons when you talked about the issue of expanded facilities, of there being land inside a secure perimeter but there being no plan about where facilities were needed.

Is that fairly accurate, in your view, as to the lack of long-term planning in both of those particular instances?

[Michael Ferguson]

Certainly in both of those audits we raise the fact that there is work done, that short-term needs were satisfied, but that there needs to be longer-term planning in both of those areas. I think that issue of long-term planning is illustrated in both of those audits.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Thank you. Time has expired.

We go over to Mr. Aspin.

You have the floor, sir.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair, and welcome, Mr. Ferguson. Thank you for appearing again.

The special examinations of crown corporations, chapter 9, is what I'm focusing on, and especially with respect to the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation. This report notes that the corporation “has put in place a corporate governance framework that meets the expectations of best practices”.

Can you tell us what some of these best practices are? Were any of these introduced since the last audit in 2006?

[Michael Ferguson]

I don't have the specifics of all of the details of the corporate governance at the museum. We do recognize that the corporation has put in place a framework that meets the expectation of best practices. However, we also said that the board is not fulfilling some of its roles and responsibilities and that there are some weaknesses related to the board's continuity.

Overall, we found that the corporate governance framework that does exist at the corporation does meet or is well-designed in terms of governance practices. However, there still are some places where the corporation needs to improve and can strengthen the implementation of that framework.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, sir.

In the consideration of both crown corporations, could you tell me whether the following is true? You said that the you “found no significant deficiencies in the Authority’s systems and practices”, in the case of the Laurentian Pilotage Authority, and similarly in the case of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation.

[Michael Ferguson]

In both of these special examinations, our conclusion was that there were no significant deficiencies in their systems and practices. We describe, for example, that a significant deficiency would be reported when there is a major weakness in a corporation's key systems and practices that could prevent it from having a reasonable assurance that its assets were safeguarded and controlled, its resources were managed efficiently and economically, and its operations were carried out effectively.

When we're doing a special examination, we are looking for very specifically described types of weaknesses that could prevent the crown corporation from safeguarding its assets and having good practices in place to manage its business. In both of these cases we found there were no significant deficiencies. We did have some recommendations for improving some of their practices, but our overall conclusion was that there were no significant deficiencies.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay.

You've made some fairly positive recommendations here, particularly for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, in terms of strategic planning and updating their collection of development plans, and also the management's use of the collection information system.

Has that corporation agreed with your recommendations? Are they moving forward on implementing these specific improvements?

[Michael Ferguson]

In terms of both of these special examinations of the two crown corporations, each of them has said that they agree with our recommendations and that they will move forward on implementing them.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay.

Chair, if I have a few minutes—