Government Operations Committee on April 26th, 2021

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

[Karen Hogan]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

We'll now go to Ms. Vignola for two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Ms. Hogan, with regard to the emergency wage subsidy, I read in the report that the agency didn't always have the most up-to-date information on file to assess applicants' incomes. In particular, it states that 19.6% of a total of 1,741,919 applications were manually reviewed, that only 0.4% of applications were disallowed and that 0.4% of applications were approved and reduced.

If all applications had been manually reviewed, would those percentages be the same or larger?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to give you a partial answer and then ask Mr. Le Goff to supplement it.

When we reviewed our sample—you're referring to the table in our report—we found that not all grant applications had been disallowed as a result of insufficient information. There was indeed a lack of information, but something suspicious was usually involved. It wasn't necessarily because of the application.

Too much information was missing. To verify income, for example, the agency needed GST returns, but many businesses hadn't yet filed their GST returns. That's because they only had to do it once a year or else because their returns were late. Our audit showed that a lot of tax information was late or missing.

Mr. Le Goff, would you like to add to my answer?

[Philippe Le Goff, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

The next audit will definitely help clarify the number of applicants who were ineligible. The figures you have are based solely on the controls in place at the time the applications were filed.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

We can also see that—

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Pardon me, Ms. Vignola, but your time is up.

We'll go to Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Going back to the notion of preparedness, I'm wondering in your audits what consideration you gave to the handling of the national emergency strategic stockpile. When can we expect the completed audit to come back to this committee on that issue?

[Karen Hogan]

During our audit on procuring personal protective equipment and medical devices, we are looking at the management of the national emergency strategic stockpile. Right now our expectation is to table that report in the House of Commons, with another report about support to indigenous communities, which includes personal protective equipment and other medical staff for indigenous communities, both at some point near the end of May.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Assuming that will be the completed version of it, what consideration did you give it in these audits, or did you leave it separate? In auditing the government's preparedness what consideration and analysis did you give the failure of the national emergency strategic stockpile?

[Karen Hogan]

Given the scope of the pandemic preparedness and border control audit, we decided to scope out the national emergency strategic stockpile and really cover it in our personal protective and medical device report that will be coming out in May. We did not consider it in this one.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Mr. Green, you still have another minute.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I've had the pleasure of being in front of Ms. Hogan.... Who's doing a great job, by the way. I'll take my minute to say that for the number of times I've seen her up in front of committees having to work through this pandemic, it's has been exemplary. Her staff always come with really candid information.

I'll just state in my closing comment that I think the bulk of this report is pretty concise in the way that it outlines the government's lack of preparedness in very obvious ways. Hopefully, we've learned these lessons and hopefully we don't see a fourth and a fifth wave.

[The Chair, Conservative, Robert Gordon Kitchen]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

We'll now go to Ms. Harder for five minutes.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Thank you.

I believe you stated earlier, Ms. Hogan, that the risk assessment tool was “not designed to consider pandemic risk.” In your report, you outline the fact that daily reports were granted, but a risk assessment wasn't given.

The risk assessment tool was not designed to consider pandemic risk. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

That's correct.

I want to clarify that the daily reports came out of the global public health intelligence network and the risk assessments are something separate.

The risk assessments did not consider forward-looking information. They weren't designed to consider a pandemic. They were really designed to consider, once the virus is here, how it might spread within Canada, but not whether or not the virus might come to Canada and then how it might spread across the country. It's that forward-looking nature that was missing.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Is there something designed to assess the risk of...coming to Canada?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, I believe the World Health Organization actually has a recommended tool to use for pandemic preparedness and pandemic-type forecasting. That tool wasn't used. The one used by the agency was for a point in time, not with a forward-looking assessment.

It does exist.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

When it comes to the pandemic and the virus being in Canada and how we respond to it, you acknowledge in your report that since 2009 and the H1N1 pandemic, the Public Health Agency of Canada further developed plans to guide a response to the pandemic.

In your estimation, were those plans followed?

[Karen Hogan]

As I mentioned earlier in responding to another question, I believe that on January 15, the federal-provincial-territorial response plan sort of kicked in, which informed the response. That plan had not ever been tested. The testing of a plan is really important in order to identify gaps and weaknesses and to overcome obstacles.

We might consider it a bit of a tabletop thing that no one really thinks is important to help you be better prepared. It was that plan that guided the response.

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Inadequate work was done, then.

You outline in your report that it had been shelved, that it needed to be regularly updated, that all of the plans that were put in place needed to be tested, that they needed to be looked at frequently and that this wasn't done. You go on to say that daily reports were issued, but no alert was given.

You talk about how, “Although the agency prepared rapid risk assessments, these did not consider the pandemic risk of this emerging infectious disease or its potential impact”, which is “information necessary to guide decision makers on the public health measures needed to control the spread of the virus.”

Why weren't these things done? They're a part of the plan. They're a part of the things that were discussed in 2019 in our response to H1N1. Why didn't it happen here? Whose orders were those, that this information be neglected?

[Karen Hogan]

All the items that you outlined are all things that should be used to guide the department's, the agency's and the country's response to the pandemic. A risk assessment tool and the global public health intelligence network issuing daily reports and the alerts are just signals to help guide what the response should look like.

I think every pandemic might have a different response. What we highlighted in our audit was that there were so many known weaknesses—that these things had not yet been tested or had not been updated or agreements between provinces and territories had not been addressed—that the agency knew for many years. We—

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

I understand. My question is very direct. Who gave the order to say that we wouldn't follow protocols that were developed in 2009?