Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[Sheila Fraser]

Negotiators and legal counsel, yes.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

If I hire a negotiator to negotiate for me, I want a negotiator who gets the job done and gets the matter completed. That's what I want. And I want it done as efficiently, as quickly, and as fairly as possible.

What's wrong here? What's the undercurrent in this situation, where we went basically 16 years, we spent $426 million, and we don't have one treaty? The negotiators must be doing quite well out of this whole arrangement; they probably work on an hourly rate or something.

What's the problem here?

[Sheila Fraser]

I think there has to be recognition that it is very complex and that it is going to take time. As I mentioned earlier, I was out in Vancouver on Friday at the summit of the B.C. chiefs, and they were indicating that for the Nisga'a treaty, which was actually signed outside of this and did not go through this process, it took close to 25 years to reach agreement.

We note in the report some of the challenges. A major issue is that the government and the first nations are coming at this with different objectives and some very contradictory positions on some fundamental issues. If those aren't addressed, I think it's going to take a very long time to get there.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I just want to make a kind of closing commentary.

A very prominent...I think he's a professor at Queen's University now, but he was a key adviser to Prime Minister Chrétien and I think he was a key adviser to Pierre Trudeau. I don't know whether, in his later years, he started to re-evaluate what he had been doing, but his basic commentary last week was that government is trying to do a whole lot of things in this society and isn't really doing a very good job in a whole lot of these areas. That was, of course, Tom Axworthy.

He zeroed in on the firearms registry, and I think a lot of the matters you've been raising underscore the sorts of issues he's been raising. I would say that your chapters 1 and 2 fit in very clearly with Mr. Axworthy's message that government is great at setting up bureaucracies and administrations and making announcements and throwing money at things, but in terms of actual results, some of these areas are real head-scratchers.

I just thank you for your reports on this matter. Without them, a lot of Canadians would not be understanding a lot of these failings that we have in government programs. And they have to understand. If we're going to spend all this money on programs, we'd better start getting some really clear results for what we're doing here.

Thank you, Madam Fraser.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.

Mr. Christopherson, you have eight minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Welcome again.

I'm going to jump right into a macro issue before I get to the specifics. I raised this at the steering committee. Unfortunately, I've had to raise it before, the fact that part of this report was leaked prior to members having an opportunity to see it, which of course is a breach of their rights as members. It's the second time during this Parliament, and I'm referring, Chair, to a Globe and Mail article dated November 8 of this year, with the byline, Mr. Daniel Leblanc.

We've had some preliminary discussions about this at the steering committee, and I think we may have even chatted about it here. One of the things that keeps coming up is that it may not be a real leak, because somebody may have gotten a little piece of the information, but it's not all accurate.

I had my office take the actual article, what was stated in there, and review it against the actual tabled report. Interestingly enough, as you go by paragraphs, as it breaks it out in the printout, the first paragraph was correct. The second paragraph was correct. The third paragraph was correct. The fourth paragraph was correct. The fifth paragraph was correct. The sixth paragraph was opinion, but it was correct. Seven is a verbatim quote. The next paragraph was an opinion, an opinion, and then correct, correct, correct, and correct. There are only five paragraphs left that are mostly telling the story of what's there.

This is not a coincidence. This has been leaked. This has been leaked by somebody who does not have the legal nor moral right to do that. In doing so, they breached the privileges of members of Parliament. When you breach the rights of a member of Parliament, you've breached the public's rights, because we're their representatives.

On May 15, Chair, you'll recall that we held a special meeting. You were the chair, and the reason the meeting was called was because five of us signed a document asking you to do that.

At that time you said, Madame Fraser, and I'm quoting from the Hansard of the committee that day: “Premature disclosure represents a disregard for the statutory right of the House of Commons to receive the report.”

You went on to say:

As you can see, my office takes steps to protect the confidentiality of our reports before they are tabled. In our opinion, there has been no breach of a law that would require us to report this incident to the RCMP. Rather, there has been a breach of the government security policy.

Lastly, you mentioned towards the end: “The government has assured me”—meaning you, Madame Fraser—“that it will investigate the leaks. It's now up to the government to take action.”

I suggested at the time that I would bring a motion or at least have a motion ready to go that would have us call in the government to account for this, since it's not with the Auditor General's office. If somebody wants to make that allegation, do so, and let's hear it and deal with it. It's not, I would think, that this one is the same as that one. It's not a criminal matter, but it is a matter or breach of security within government. I have to tell you, Chair, I've just about had enough of this.

Again, for the benefit of anyone who is listening, this is about the fact that ministries are given an opportunity to see the reports ahead of time, but we accept that. It's the same thing as when I was at Queen's Park. That is exactly the way it's done. That's to give them a chance to—correct me if I'm wrong, Auditor General—make sure of the accuracy of information. It's an opportunity to clarify anything that they think you might have wrong by way of your assumptions and underlying fact base. And it's an opportunity to give them feedback as to what they are going to do about it, because those responses are contained in the report. In order for us to generate that, they need to see it. It's understandable that the process would involve certain high officials being given an opportunity to review this in confidence prior to the tabling. Cool.

Where we're at now, though, unless the Auditor General's office—and again, somebody else make the accusation—is not telling us the truth and it's leaking like a sieve and it's their problem...what it's telling us is that there are government officials, whether it's elected people or appointed people, who are abusing members' rights for political gain. It's not such an unusual concept in this place, but it's not allowed.

One of two things has to happen, Chair. One, the leaks have to be plugged, this has to be stopped, and people need to be held accountable because somebody broke the law of the House of Commons. Somebody has to be held accountable. And if we can't get to the bottom of it, then, Chair, we'll probably have to take a look at the process, because I'm not going to let go of this, and I'm sure there are other members that aren't either, which might mean that we can't give the document to at least ministers, deputy ministers, and other senior officials, which is a crying shame because the whole system will not work as well.

Either we find out who did this, change the system, or accept the fact that we really don't have members' privileges around these reports and that it's fair game the minute it goes out of the Auditor General's shop--and that doesn't work either.

This can't continue, Chair. I believe the clerk has a copy—if not, I'll make sure he has one—of a motion that will probably not be debatable until maybe even the meeting after next, because there'll have to be interpretation and that. But just by way of advising my colleagues, the motion I'm going to table will say:

I move that the government provide a representative to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts to explain the investigation process, timelines, and results regarding the leaked Auditor General reports of May 14, 2006 and November 8, 2006.

I would hope that members would agree that we have to do something. I'm not on a witch hunt here. If it stops, I'm off this issue. If we find out who did it, we plug that hole; we're off this issue. But we can't let this stand. We can't. We have an obligation. That's what we're about. We're about accountability.

This just infuriates me. I could be wrong--I stand to be corrected--but I'm not sure that this sort of thing is widespread across the country or in other parliaments. There have been only eight times, I believe, in total--nine, if you include this one--since 2001. Out of about 130 reports that have been tabled, it's not acceptable, but it shows two things: one, it's still happening; and two, it's happening with more frequency. I don't think it's a coincidence that because we didn't act more firmly in May, we have another problem here in November.

We have to do something, colleagues. I'm open, wide open, as to how we go about this, but the first thing, it seems to me, is that if we determine that the leak is somewhere within the government process, then we ought to call in government representatives to give us an accounting of what they've done, how they've done it, the timelines and the results. Then we need to satisfy ourselves as to whether or not what they've told us is acceptable and whether that's the bottom of the issue or not.

Chair, that's coming. I would hope that we would get off this, because it wastes our time too. In every way it's wrong.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Actually, your time is up. We will accept your motion. It will be translated and put on the table for debate and vote next Tuesday, a week from today.

First of all, I want to reiterate Mr. Christopherson's point. You've reported twice this year and both times they've been leaked. I'm going to ask for a comment from the Auditor General.

Have your investigations determined anything at all that would assist this committee? The committee takes this very seriously. Mr. Christopherson is right. If it continues, as parliamentarians we have to do something. I assume you, as the Auditor General, have to do something also. You cannot allow it to continue, because it calls into question the integrity of your office and it calls into question the integrity of government, Parliament.

Again, once, it might have happened; twice, it looks like a pattern to me.

[Sheila Fraser]

I agree, Chair, that this is very upsetting. It is very troubling to me that this is continuing. I can perhaps say some of the things that we have done. We have, obviously, gone through our normal review. We've also requested the RCMP to review our procedures over physical control of documents to see if they had any recommendations, which they did not.

We continue to believe that the journalist did not have a copy of the actual report, that in fact much of the information there could have been obtained from the CITT challenge, that one of the bidders.... But that being said, we will never know for sure.

The Treasury Board has...but you see, the direct quote can be...somebody being interested in passing on information without actually giving over a copy of a report.

Our focus tends to be very much on physical control over the documents. What we have done, though, with the Department of Public Works, is we have asked them to change their procedures with us, which they've agreed to do. The reports will go to the liaison person we have with them--a limited number. They will not be circulated within the department. People will have to actually go to that person's office to consult the report, and if necessary we will have to extend that to other departments.

Finally, the Treasury Board Secretariat has indicated that they will be conducting a review. I don't know where that review is at, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. We have Mr. Christopherson's motion that will be dealt with at a later meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Ms. Ratansi for five minutes, and then Mr. Wrzesnewskyj for five minutes.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Auditor General, I have a quick question for you.

Whenever you've done your audit, you've said that in general government operates efficiently. But they have to change with the changing times, and there are certain checks and balances that need to be put in place, because the context of operation changes.

You made a statement in chapters 1 and 2 that you were not given access to certain expenditure information, and Mr. Laforest brought forward that question.

Was that information material enough for you to give a qualified opinion?

[Sheila Fraser]

In essence, yes, because if it was not information that we deemed essential to our audit, we would not have reported the denial of access to Parliament.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'd like to return to chapter 9.

What is the name of the consultant hired by Mr. Crupi, the director of the National Compensation Policy Centre, and what was the relationship between them?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't have that information.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Could you please provide us with that information?

Now I understand that—

[Sheila Fraser]

Chairman, I would prefer that you ask the department for that information.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Okay. That request will be made.

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't know if you're planning to have a hearing on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We are planning to have a hearing. Someone will be here on Thursday.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I understand that students were hired straight out of university and they were paid the CR-05 rate. That's the rate for senior clerical officers. What kind of competencies did they bring to the table?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'm afraid I don't have that information. What I can say is that as we note in the report, the students were paid about double the rate under the student hiring plan. There is a student workplace program in government. They did not come through that; they were hired directly.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Crupi should have been reporting to his immediate superior. It turns out that he was circumventing that individual and going directly to Mr. Ewanovich.

I mentioned earlier that it turns out that Mr. Ewanovich's daughter was hired straight out of university. She didn't have any sort of accounting background or any special competencies in this field, from what I can tell. Is that correct?

[Sheila Fraser]

I have no knowledge of that person or her competencies.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

When the whistle was blown on this, the RCMP began a criminal investigation. It was cancelled two days later by Commissioner Zaccardelli.

During your investigation, did you speak with the RCMP officers who had initiated the criminal investigation?