Government Operations Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2025

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

You mentioned in your report a resistance to change. Was that an equally significant factor?

[Karen Hogan]

They were all factors of varying degrees. It depends on the department. For example, some might have had dedicated individual office spaces for each employee, so the resistance to change there would have been much greater than if they were already in an environment where they were hotelling and they would just reserve a spot and sit there. It's a big transition for many public servants as well. There are many factors that play into why progress is slow.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

You also, as part of your audit, did a survey yourself. Is that correct? Not all tenants responded. Is that a surprise? Normally, with this form of survey, do they all—

[Karen Hogan]

I have to admit that I was impressed with the response rate. Getting an over 80% response rate on a survey is considered extraordinary and is actually a really good result.

Those were their thoughts and views, and that's why we felt confident enough to put them in our audit report. It wasn't like a handful had reported; the majority really had given us their views.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Gaudreau, go ahead for two and a half minutes, please.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to use my two and a half minutes to ask the Auditor General a question.

I read in your report that Public Services and Procurement Canada did not release the information you said you needed. That worries me. I'm worried things will stagnate, the House will just rubber-stamp things and we'll sacrifice more and more transparency in all the legislative work we do in favour of doing things as quickly as possible and reacting to economic conditions.

Have you observed such a trend in your work with the government, or does this reflect what MPs are experiencing these days?

[Karen Hogan]

That's a big question.

In many cases, departments are reluctant to release information they haven't yet examined because they don't want surprises.

Our audit of current and future use of federal office space found that some data should have been made public. That would really have been more in line with best practices.

We talked about Australia's practices with respect to data about office occupancy and the fact that, in my opinion, if Canada followed such practices, that would help deputy ministers decide whether to dispose of certain premises. That's what we were getting at.

Overall, I believe some data should sometimes be made public. That's why we identified that data in our reports to ensure good conversations happen and the information needed to support good decision-making is made public.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Overall, I get very concerned when I hear about the government being reactive rather than proactive. I'm an entrepreneur, and if I operated that way, my businesses would fail. This is worrisome.

[Karen Hogan]

Risk management has to use both approaches, but I expect to see more proactive mitigation measures, with reactive measures as needed, not the other way around.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's a very good point.

Next we'll go to Ms. Jansen, please, for five minutes.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for the reports you've done.

I'm hoping to focus on the current and future use of office space. I'm trying to better understand how the affordable housing programs work, because when I talk to families in my constituency, I find that they don't really care about the big announcements in Ottawa; they care about whether they can actually pay the rent and get an affordable roof over their heads.

I noticed in the report that Ottawa uses the term “affordable housing” to mean 80% of today's sky-high market rent, and StatsCan says that it should be no more than 30% of a family's income. Those two radically different definitions seem to me to be a bit of a problem. Would you agree that this difference in definitions is a big part of the problem and exactly why the lowest-income families, the ones we need to help the most, are still being left out in the cold?

[Karen Hogan]

On the concern around the measure used for affordable housing, it's not the first time that I've raised this concern. I did an audit on chronic homelessness and identified.... As you say, Statistics Canada bases affordable housing on rent, but so does the national housing strategy.

Canada's national housing strategy says that this is the benchmark: You shouldn't spend more than 30% of pre-tax household income on your housing needs. However, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which delivers many of these programs, uses a different one. They do base it, in this program and in a few others, on 80% of median market rent. At a time when rent is increasing because of the shortage of housing, we end up with rental properties that are not meeting the needs of those who need them the most.

In this case, there was that definition, but there's also the fact that the buildings that were being released to be used in the federal lands initiative were not in cities with the greatest need, so there were two things at play here that we think could increase access to affordable housing.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Does it make sense to you that the new $13-billion Build Canada Homes program is using the exact same flawed affordability definition as was used in the federal lands initiative? If the smaller program failed to deliver real affordability, why should Canadians expect that this much bigger program won't just fail on a much bigger scale?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm sorry. I can't really talk about that program. What I would expect a housing program to look at would be affordability and accessibility, and also sustainability. There's a trade-off among them. Not every home can meet all of those criteria.

I would also like to see homes built along the spectrum of houses, not just rental properties. There are other types of housing along the housing spectrum that I would expect a housing program to consider in terms of the costs and benefits in where you invest in a given year.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I thought that maybe we could just talk about Canadians who are currently struggling to make ends meet, such as the store manager at a grocery chain. Maybe they're earning about $50,000 a year. Under Ottawa's definition, their affordable rent in Vancouver could still be $2,500 a month. That's over half of their paycheque. How would a single mom working full time make that work?

[Karen Hogan]

While I love math, I'm not the one who can help someone manage their day-to-day budget. I think it's important to note that the national housing strategy does call for affordability to be based on household income, and that the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is using a different definition. In both of the reports I mentioned—the chronic homelessness one and this one—we have given a recommendation to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation to relook at that, and I would expect that they would align with what's in the national housing strategy at some point.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

When government calls these units “affordable”, isn't it true that most of the vulnerable families in our communities—single parents, one-income families—still won't be able to afford them?

[Karen Hogan]

I would state that they are more affordable in that they're less than market rent, but they aren't meeting those with the greatest needs. Something a government should be concerned about is helping those who are furthest behind and moving them forward first. That's why I would expect that when you determine affordability, some of the houses would be based on income threshold.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I actually had one more example, because I want Canadians to understand what this really means.

Let's say there's a single-income family, with a dad working as a long-term care worker, which is also 50,000 bucks a year, and he's paying $2,500 in rent. That basically leaves him $1,700 to cover gas, groceries, heat and clothes for the kids. The rent that they're paying is not actually affordable.

Would you agree?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Provide a very brief answer, if you're able to.

[Karen Hogan]

Again, I would point to Statistics Canada and the national housing strategy's definition that affordability, when it comes to housing, should be based on pre-tax income and should consider all the other things that a household has to spend on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

We're going to go to Mr. Gaheer. Go ahead for five minutes, please.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the AG for appearing before committee.

Ma'am, you talked about challenges regarding the CF-35 program, including a lack of integrated planning and coordination, insufficient infrastructure readiness, and gaps in workforce and recruiting. We know that having a modern, agile and effective fighter jet fleet is key to Canada's defence of its airspace and of North American airspace.

As we make the strategic investment away from the existing CF-18 fighter jets to a new fleet, what factors must be taken into account to reduce operational capability gaps and reliance on our partners?