Thank you.
Evidence of meeting #42 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spending.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #42 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spending.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you very much, Ms. Sgro.
Monsieur Laforest, huit minutes, s'il vous plaît.
3:45 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Fraser, when you tabled your report, you indicated that you had not had access to certain information, but that the problem was resolved in November.
To what information were you referring and when was access denied to you?
3:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
The incident occurred while we were in the midst of doing our audits in late 2005 and early 2006. Two audits were involved: one of the Expenditure Management System, and the other, of IT initiatives. We wanted to find out how the Treasury Board Secretariat managed IT projects within the framework of the Expenditure Management System. We were denied access to documents on the grounds that these were confidential Cabinet papers.
The problem stems in part from the fact that we are dealing with a Cabinet secretariat that also plays an operational role. We argued that we were entitled to have access to these documents. Discussions with the Privy Council Office continued up until the summer. Obviously, we had to halt the process of drafting the chapters. That's when we made it known that we had been denied access to the documents.
As a result of an order in council, we now have access to these documents.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
You now have access to these documents, but have you been able to review them?
3:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
The new directive does not apply retroactively because of the change in government. When the new government came to power, it could have authorized access to these documents, but not retroactively. Therefore, we have not examined the documents the access to which was denied us, but the situation has been rectified for the future.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Therefore, part of the information will not be passed along to Parliament and will not have been audited. Are you saying then that eventually, Parliament could see its privileges breached?
3:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
The fact is that as agents of Parliament, we have been unable to complete certain steps or parts of the audit process because we were denied access to certain documents.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Several times, notably in Chapter 1, you state that generally speaking, the expenditure management system, that is the reporting of certain expenditures or departmental spending authorization, does not take performance or results into account.
Of the 130 agencies or departments that have undergone performance audits, does it ever happen that measures are taken before an audit is done, with a view to justifying an existing, long-term program? Can you give me any examples of this? It makes a considerable difference.
3:50 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I doubt there are any. Program evaluations have surely been conducted, but we haven't noticed that they were done systematically. We do not take this into account in the granting of credits. It's more a matter of current programs that are renewed annually, without closely evaluating how they have performed.
3:50 p.m.
Bloc
Jean-Yves Laforest Bloc Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC
Mr. Wouters, you stated that your goal was to ensure that all government programs are effective and efficient, which means that you have quite a job ahead of you.
Before you adopt a new approach, are you going to share your plans with the Auditor General to see if they correspond to her recommendations? What timetable do you have in mind?
You say you want all government programs to be effective and efficient. Therefore, I would imagine all affected programs will be evaluated one by one, according to a fairly specific timetable.
3:55 p.m.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you. Merci.
That would be the approach. We would want to outline our implementation plan very clearly in order to ensure that we have an effective expenditure management system in place. This will take time, as I said in my opening statement.
Clearly there is going to be a need to invest in the evaluation function. Our view is that this function is not at a level that is required in order to do the appropriate assessment of programs on an annual basis. It's going to take time to put that system in place and to be able to have an ongoing review of existing spending. That, as well, is going to require a period of time to bring in.
We will have an implementation plan once the government decides to proceed and agrees on the individual details. We'll make that available to the Auditor General, and we'd be pleased to make that available to this committee as well.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I start, I have a question for the Auditor General.
I was reading in the The Globe and Mail today, on page A15, a letter by Mr. Granatstein, who writes for them periodically. He was writing about problems in the military. He said that there were three problems:
The first is something called the accrual system of accounting. In the past, Canadian governments bought a truck for $25,000 and charged that sum to a department's budget. The cost of gas, oil, and maintenance five, 10, and 20 years down the road were charged to future budgets. In accrual accounting, perhaps more reasonably, the costs of operating the truck 20 years into the future are charged to today's budget. That $25,000 truck now becomes a $125,000 charge on this year's budget funding.
Is Mr. Granatstein out to lunch on this? Does he need a lesson on accounting?
3:55 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Williams knows very well that we don't charge gasoline expenditures 25 years out to today's budget.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Well, maybe we should let Mr. Granatstein know. Maybe he needs a lesson on accrual accounting.
Mr. Wouters, I wasn't too happy with your opening statement. I thought it was a self-serving thing that didn't really tell us a lot of detail. You told us you were going to do a lot of things, but there is actually nothing in here as to how you're going to get there. But it sounds nice.
On the last page, you do happen to say that we need both new evaluation tools and more evaluators. How many more evaluators are you going to get?
3:55 p.m.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
Again, it depends on the timeframe we're looking at in order to—
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
If I could respond to the question, it's a timeframe to undertake evaluations within the system. We think we should be able to be in a position to evaluate every direct program's spending over a five-year period. That would probably mean roughly a doubling of the number of evaluators to undertake that process, which would be around 200 additional evaluators.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Do you have a plan to hire these 200 more evaluators?
3:55 p.m.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's what we're working on right now as part of our overall implementation plan: do we in fact need to provide any further training within the system and the kind of outside recruitment we need to have these people in place? That's very much a part of the overall expenditure management system renewal.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Okay.
The Auditor General points out there is very little analysis of the effectiveness of existing programs. But every so often we're announcing new programs.
About 10 years ago, or more, I brought forward a private member's bill called program evaluation. It said that all existing programs were to be evaluated on, say, a 10-year cycle so that we know they are delivering value for money. There were four simple questions to be asked: one, what is the program supposed to do for society, i.e., a mission statement; two, how well is it doing what it's supposed to do; three, is it doing it efficiently and effectively; and four, is there a better way to achieve the same results? Mr. Chairman, that bill has languished and been ignored for years and years, and now the Auditor General is writing about more effectiveness in program delivery.
Why is it taking so long, Mr. Wouters, to get some real effectiveness into program delivery?
4 p.m.
Secretary, Treasury Board Secretariat
I won't comment on where we have been, except to say that if you look back over the past decade, we came in with the expenditure management system back in the early 1990s, after a period of time when the existing A-base had been reviewed on an ongoing basis each and every year. Then we had this exercise called program review, which was a thorough assessment of the A-base of the departments. There was a view, at that time, that we had it more or less right and that therefore the focus should be on new spending—to contain new spending—because of course that period of time was a deficit period. So the focus largely was on new spending, and I would argue that this is the system we still have in place today.
As a result of that, there is a need, when we look at new spending, to align that new spending with existing spending. So every time the government or the departments come forward with a new idea, the new idea and the incremental spending should be articulated. That is, the rationale should be based on what we are spending in that area now and whether there is a need for incremental spending.
4 p.m.
Conservative
John Williams Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
I can't imagine, given the quality and the calibre and the number of managers we have in the public sector, Mr. Chairman, that that wouldn't have been taken as a matter of course years ago, and we're trying to get around to that now.
The next question I have is on supplementary estimates. It seems that a lot of times the money is spent before Parliament is even asked whether it's a good idea. And it seems to me that Parliament has now become just another stamp on the paper in the process along the way. Governments should not be spending money unless it's approved by Parliament.
First of all, do you agree with that statement?