Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Thank you, Mrs. Fraser.

Mr. Christopherson, five minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I don't think it's been touched on yet, which quite surprised me, but I want to move to chapter 8, dealing with allocating funds to regulatory programs, although I have to say, and I think Mr. Fitzpatrick raised it, I wasn't expecting it from that angle. I don't want to misquote him, but I do believe, Chair, he was making reference and thanking you for raising it, because it was somehow feeding into the argument that there are too many regulations.

Anyway, I'll take a very different tack, probably a little more consistent with where I think you were going, which is that we have these important regulations--well, sometimes you need laws--and these are the words of the Auditor General, “in an area so critically important to Hamiltonians”, certainly Hamiltonians and Canadians. So I want to move straight to it. I want to move to the product safety program, because this really blows me away.

If we take a look at the chart you've provided on page 9 in chapter 8, it points out where there is “Insufficient level of activity”, and in everywhere except “Not applicable” or “Not raised as a concern”, it's insufficient. What are we talking about here? As I'm understanding this, the public safety program is the actual part of Health Canada's mandate to ensure that products, up to and including medical devices like pacemakers and hearing aids, things we put inside our bodies, products we buy for our kids, cribs, strollers, things of that ilk...this is the department that ensures they're safe for the public. Public safety is more than police, jail terms, and fighting terrorism. Public safety is also making sure that products people buy, particularly those they ingest as medicine, are safe for them. I mean, that's public safety.

Here we have a report, a devastating report. Really, I'm shocked that the media haven't picked up on this more, because it is a public safety issue. It's rife through this whole report that there's not enough money. Not only is there not enough money going into the protection of these things, but it was the managers themselves who pointed out, after they reviewed the work they were expected to do, that they didn't have the funding to cover those activities.

Nothing here is satisfactory. I ask colleagues to look at the charts. Nothing is satisfactory in every area.

I'm looking at this, and I'm looking at things such as are on page 11, where it's talking about core funding for product safety, for the drug products program, and medical devices. The core funding has been reduced over the years by, I believe...well, take a look at the numbers. Under product safety, it was $8.1 million in 2003-04, and now it's $7.3 million; for drug products programs, $7.1 million, down to $4.8 million; core funding in the medical devices program, $2 million, and now it's half of that at $1 million.

If I'm understanding the chart on page 10, for instance, let's go to this: “Compliance and enforcement activities, Conducting inspections of manufacturers of drug ingredients”--that's prescription drugs. That's to check to see what ingredients they're using in the production of prescription medicine that we all get from our pharmacies. This is telling me that there is insufficient activity from Health Canada to meet the needs that Canadians have to inspect the contents of these prescription drugs. Is that correct? Is it that black and white?

[Sheila Fraser]

These chart concerns were raised by the program managers. We did not do an assessment as to whether the level of activity was sufficient or not, because the level of activity is not determined and not established. What we're saying is in order for Health Canada to show that they are meeting their responsibilities under the regulations, they need to establish targets of levels of activity and they need to monitor if those are in fact being met. That doesn't exist, and this is what the program managers are telling us.

Now, I would use a little caution, perhaps, in interpreting this, because I think most program managers would probably tell you they're not doing enough. But still, it is an indication that there is a concern by these people that they should be doing more in these regulatory programs.

You are correct about the funding going down. We're not necessarily recommending that there be more funding, but we're saying in order to assess how much money should be going into this, we need to know those levels of activity they should be carrying out.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I take it as pretty strong--the fact that you didn't discover it, that they're offering it up. I mean, come on, we spend a lot of time here trying to find things out, but when somebody is offering up from within government that they don't have enough money to do something, or they're not doing something adequately, boy oh boy, it has to be really bad if they've raised this on their own. Otherwise, like many other things we know about, it would just lie hidden and not be dealt with unless you happen to turn it up. To me this is huge.

I was looking at the responses from the ministry, and at best they say, as always, “Agreed.” Then they go on to say the goal for a lot of the tasks they've set for themselves is that they're going to complete them by March 31, 2008. I've looked through it, and it seems to be the common date for everything. I don't know whether they have some big review going on, but what it tells me is, first, that it's an awfully long time; and second, that during that time there are still going to be products for our children, for our seniors, prescription drugs and other really important public safety matters that will not be adequately reviewed and investigated.

I'd like your thoughts. Is there something I'm missing? Is that a reasonable length of time, in your opinion?

[Sheila Fraser]

I think that length of time is not unreasonable. They are trying to introduce a new operational planning system for the year 2007-08, which begins in three or four months. In order to establish all of those targets and performance measures, it does take a certain amount of time. The fact that they're actually committing to March 2008 is not bad, I think. The question will be whether they will actually get there.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

They can't break it into smaller pieces, just to begin eliminating some of the exposure risks that Canadians are faced with now?

[Sheila Fraser]

I would expect that would be ongoing over the year, but that would be something to look at with the department, how they do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson. Thank you very much, Ms. Fraser.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, for five minutes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

We've had two reports this year, and both reports have been leaked.

Madam Fraser, are you familiar with the Security of Information Act?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Paragraph 4(1)(a) of that act speaks to this type of issue. It says every person is guilty of an offence under this act who communicates the

document or information to any person, other than a person to whom he is authorized to communicate with, or a person to whom it is in the interest of the State his duty to communicate it;

It quite clearly talks of guilt when someone passes on information--in this particular case, documents--to people they are not authorized to pass it to.

[Sheila Fraser]

Perhaps I could ask for clarification. I believe that is just for classified information, for secret....

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I asked for legal counsel on this particular point--senior legal counsel provided to parliamentarians on this issue--and they felt this particular section of the act applies to these sets of circumstances.

Back in the spring in our meetings, we'd requested.... You had your own security officer and had produced a report. The report unfortunately wasn't able to conclude where or how a leak may have occurred, and during our discussions the RCMP was invoked.

Was the RCMP ever called in to see whether or not they could find where this particular leak could have occurred?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, they were not. The only contact we've had with the RCMP has been to review with them our procedures over the physical security of documents. It would really be up to government to determine if they were to call in the RCMP or not.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

This is an interesting point. You're an officer of Parliament, not of government. You work on our behalf. You produce reports for us. We act on those reports. We also oversee the processes involved in those reports. I would assume we would oversee this process, not the government. So logically, rationally, since you are an officer of Parliament--and with the utmost respect for the great work you do, you do report to us--would it not be up to us to request the RCMP to look into this matter of leaks of your reports?

[Sheila Fraser]

Parliament can certainly do as Parliament wishes. At the time of the leak in May, though, our legal counsel looked at it and didn't believe it would have been of a criminal nature. Now you seem to have a different opinion, and we can go back and look at it.

But I would be surprised that leaking an Auditor General's report could lead to criminal charges. If it were secret information or information on national security, obviously that would be different.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Let me get at a different point here. Criminality is something we'll address, perhaps, at a later date. I'm more concerned with plugging leaks of your reports, because it certainly undermines the confidence in your offices.

In the spring I wrote a letter to the Commissioner of the RCMP requesting that the RCMP look into this matter of leaks. I received a response from the commissioner, Mr. Zaccardelli, where he states:

Although I appreciate your concerns, you may wish to know that the RCMP will not undertake a formal investigation into these allegations unless the Auditor General of Canada makes a formal request to the RCMP for assistance.

I'm not quite sure he understands the relationship: that in fact you are an officer of Parliament; that you report to us. He seems to have misunderstood how this relationship flows. Fundamentally, it's our rights as parliamentarians that are undermined—your offices, but our rights as parliamentarians. Undermining your offices in fact undermines the work we're doing on behalf of Canadians.

Do you subscribe to Mr. Zaccardelli's logic here, that we have no right to request that the RCMP look into leaks of Auditor General's reports?

[Sheila Fraser]

Mr. Chair, I really can't respond to that. I'm just being made aware of this request and of the letter Mr. Wrzesnewskyj got. I think it would be inappropriate for me to try to explain why Mr. Zaccardelli would have responded in the way he did. I think it's really up to him to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj. Thank you, Mrs. Fraser.

That concludes the examinations. Colleagues, we are now going to go in camera to deal with two minor issues.

Mrs. Fraser, before we break, do you have any concluding remarks that you want to address?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'd just like to thank the committee for the interest in the report, and we look forward to hearings on various issues in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Just to remind everyone, we will be back with the Office of the Auditor General on Thursday to deal with the Royal LePage situation.

Members, we're going to suspend for thirty seconds so that we can go in camera.

[Proceedings continue in camera]