Evidence of meeting #8 for Canadian Heritage in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was telefilm.
Executive Director, Heritage Group, Department of Canadian Heritage
If memory serves me right, the figures at the time did deal with the national historic sites under the control of Parks Canada, and were based on the assessment that Parks Canada had done at the time. I believe that is part of the review update.
The more current information I think the committee would need to hear from Parks Canada officials.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Thank you very much.
Ms. Fraser, you noted in your opening statement that the department exercised considerable influence over the governance of Telefilm Canada. I'm just wondering if you can elaborate on that a little bit and explain some of the issues you found there.
Auditor General of Canada
The issue we raised is that many of the activities that Telefilm Canada carries out are under contract or through agreements with the department. This is a very unusual situation for a crown corporation. Usually, the crown corporation and its board of directors will receive guidance from the minister on the objectives. But the crown corporation will usually establish its own objectives in how it wants to carry out its public policy roles.
But in this case, they're really a contracting agent almost--I guess in the simplest terms--for the department, so they have little leeway in actually determining how they will fulfil the role and the mandate that Parliament has given to them.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
So the minister may actually give direction as to where the investments should be made? Do I hear you--
Auditor General of Canada
You might want to ask the department, but my understanding is that given the recent changes, it is actually the Canadian Television Fund that will now make the decisions, and it is Telefilm Canada that kind of carries out the operations. But Telefilm Canada does not make the strategic or policy decisions. My understanding is that they're really an executing agent for the Canadian Television Fund. We haven't really looked at that. The department might give you more information on that.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Cultural Affairs, Department of Canadian Heritage
In the Lincoln report, this committee proposed and the government implemented a simplified structure where the broad public policy direction with respect to Canadian production financing was coming from the minister, who would ask the CTF to set the sort of level two public policy issues. Then there's a service agreement with Telefilm Canada, between the CTF and Telefilm Canada, because Telefilm has regional offices across the country and is an efficient delivery partner in that context. This is the structure that was put in place.
In terms of contracts, one of the other contribution agreements between the department and Telefilm, Bill C-18 actually made an amendment to the Telefilm Canada Act that allows the department to enter into such agreements with Telefilm.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gary Schellenberger
We have time. We'll go for another round here, anyway. You can have one quick one.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Okay, thanks. I only wanted to ask a little bit with regard to the Canadian Revenue Agency, Canadian Heritage, and Telefilm Canada not applying the controls rigorously enough. I'm wondering if you could give me a little bit more information about that.
Auditor General of Canada
This is largely related to tax credits for productions. You must have Canadian content and Canadian content is awarded on the basis of points, so if the people who work in the production are Canadians, you get certain points depending upon their.... So one of the issues was whether they were actually verifying if these people were truly Canadian. There was a question of exchange of information as well between--I'm just trying to think of the name of the organization that does the certification--CAVCO and Revenue Canada, so there would be better exchange of information between the different organizations. They had a very good framework. It simply needed to have a little more rigour in its application.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
So there was a possibility that there were federal dollars going into programs that weren't necessarily qualified--may not have been qualified.
Auditor General of Canada
There was a risk that there could be credits given yet the people shouldn't have received them. So we were saying they needed to tighten that up.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Fraser, I want to ask one more general question, if you will, and then get specific.
On the matter of looking into the department, you made some recommendations on some of its programs but not others. Are those the things you wish to be discussing with us later on, at the start of 2007, or have you covered the whole gamut of all the programs in the department?
Auditor General of Canada
We have looked at other programs in the department. We recently did a follow-up on grants and contributions across government, which included a program in Heritage Canada. We found that it was being managed well. We could easily come back with other issues. I think what we would like to engage the committee in is more going forward and what are the kinds of issues that you as parliamentarians would be interested in us looking at, and that we discuss future planning with you as well.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I'll leave a question as well--I'm not looking for an answer today, but it's a question I've had the habit of asking your deputy. Is there anything else we should be aware of? That is the open-ended question, and I'll leave it to you. Perhaps you can respond to it some other time.
I want to explore one other thing. You have looked at museums, for instance, or will be looking at them. In so doing, in order to assess whether or not they've met their objectives, one presumes that you'll be looking at their business plans. Is that correct?
Auditor General of Canada
Yes. For the museums, we do an annual financial audit. And as is the case with now all crown corporations, once every five years they have to undergo what is called a special examination. We actually have to give an opinion as to whether there are any significant deficiencies in their management.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
The reason I'm bringing this up is that I take it that parliamentarians are not shown, and won't be shown, the full business plans of these corporations. Are you aware of that?
Auditor General of Canada
My understanding is that you receive a summary of the plans.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
That's correct, a summary. But if we ask for the full plan, we can't get it. Is that something you're aware of?
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Okay. The question I want to put--and I understand I'm not putting it to the right person here, and I apologize for putting you a bit on the spot--I'm wondering how, as parliamentarians, we can be asked to assess how certain institutions are doing, via your assessment of it, without us having the same information that you have access to.
Auditor General of Canada
On that question, I would answer by saying we actually have access to a lot more information than parliamentarians do.
Auditor General of Canada
When we conduct our audits, for example, we have access to all the classified secret information. This is a question we've been raising, that parliamentarians really need to have a vehicle whereby you can have access to that information. If we do reports that are unclassified, we should be able to tell you the results, because right now we can't.