Public Accounts Committee on March 26th, 2007

[Ron Stewart]

No, I did not.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

You didn't attend any Grey Cup games on those occasions that the Auditor General—

[Ron Stewart]

No, I did not. The last Grey Cup game I attended I played in it, and it was in 1969.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Congratulations. But on 14 days, according to the Auditor General, you did travel to numerous cities and there's no documentation of any work. That is to say, there's no log of you visiting a prison. There's no evidence of a meeting that was held. Is there any reason for that? Any reason why there was no evidence of any work done on those days?

[Ron Stewart]

You don't have to go to prison to deal with inmate complaints or people I met with, with lawyers. I would meet with the provincial ombudsman, who sometimes, when there was an urgent complaint at a federal institution, would go in my stead and look after that. There were, as I said, lawyers and families of inmates who I would be in touch with. I would also be in touch with people on parole, which is part of my mandate—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Stewart, we're limited on time.

I just want to ask, Ms. Fraser, if there was any evidence on these 12 trips you referred to on page 8 that Mr. Stewart did any of the other kinds of work he's just described. He says you don't have to go to a prison to investigate a complaint. Is there any evidence that he did anything else?

[Sheila Fraser]

We could not find any documentation, and we of course asked Mr. Stewart if he could recall the purpose of those trips, and he was unable to provide us with any explanation either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson, seven minutes, please.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you all very much for your time.

I don't have a lot of questions of Mr. Stewart. I'm going to assume that the Auditor General has done her job, and obviously she's prepared to defend and stand behind the work her office has done and the conclusions they've reached.

So with the exception of one question, I'm going to focus my attention on the checks and balances as to how this happened. I'm also assuming that this is not going to end here. You can't make these kinds of allegations against people without expecting--unless you're completely and totally guilty--some kind of a response. So I'm going to assume this whole thing is going to work its way through other proper channels.

But I would like to know, Mr. Stewart, in the last full year that you worked, what was your pay for that position?

[Ron Stewart]

It would be in the $130,000 range.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Auditor General, help me out here. What do you see as the first check and balance that should have kicked in, and if the answer is different, who, in your opinion—what entity—holds primary responsibility for letting this drop?

[Sheila Fraser]

I think one of the first issues, as I mentioned in the opening statement, is the whole role of the senior financial officer within the organization. The executive director had signed many of the documents that require a signature from the senior financial officer as senior financial officer, but he told us that he didn't believe he was assuming that role; he thought it was someone in the department who was offering a form of transactional services.

That's why we recommended that the Treasury Board Secretariat should ensure that it is absolutely clear in each organization that there be a senior financial officer and that the senior financial officer be fully aware of their roles and responsibilities, so that there isn't this kind of confusion.

A second issue, and this points to a sort of breakdown in controls, is that the Correctional Investigator was able to submit and approve his own travel expenses and bills. I'm told that some of them actually went directly from him to the people doing the processing; they didn't necessarily go through.... I think that too is a kind of basic control, that people should not be able to sign their own. This again comes back to the senior financial officer role and the question of who would normally be approving this.

Then I think there's a role on the part of the processing people, which I believe the deputy minister agrees with. When they see transactions that appear questionable, they should ask more questions about them.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you for that.

Deputy, in your opening comments you said:

The Report of the Auditor General identified some weaknesses in the way officials of my department discharged their responsibilities over the years. The appropriate corrective measures have been identified and are being implemented.

On the last part, again I'll assume that you're doing exactly what you've said and that it's done the right way.

But talk to me a little bit more about your officials and the role your officials have in terms of this responsibility.

I'm going to leave it at that and see what comes from that.

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

Thank you.

To pick up on what the Auditor General just said, the responsibility of the Department of the Solicitor General at the time—now Public Safety—is as a service provider with respect to some human resource services and some financial management services. Basically we process the bills, the accounts given to us by the Office of the Correctional Investigator.

The lacuna, if you like—what I do not believe officials of the department did correctly and what we have now corrected—is that people were processing some documentation directly from the Correctional Investigator without a third-party attestation.

I cannot sign off for myself before I get a cheque to be reimbursed for travel, say, or hospitality. I fill out my claim like anyone else, but someone checks it for me to ensure that everything is according to the rules and the guidelines of the Treasury Board. That's an example.

The clerks who were allowing this were not requiring this additional check, and that's where the check and balance wasn't working. But I must add that these were clerical functions, and I cannot explain why it was done that way. It's not appropriate; we've now fixed it. You need that check.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Deputy and Auditor General, is there any evidence at all to indicate collusion outside of the agency?

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

Not that I'm aware of, no.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay.

When we're talking about processing—and thank you for the fullness of your answer—normally I would assume that to mean that proper checks and balances are part of the appropriate processing. Does that mean that this was handled differently from other processing within your...?

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

Yes. It was done differently.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

And as the deputy you were okay with that?

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

I was not the deputy minister at the time.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Well, here we go again. I appreciate that. Okay. That's for another debate.

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

But no, it's not okay.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Does that mean, then—and I'll leave it to you to answer it, as you are a high official—that your predecessor didn't do the job?

[Suzanne Hurtubise]

I can't comment on my predecessor.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Where do I go, Deputy? Where do I go to get the accountability about who allowed this to happen? Help me.

It is important to keep this in mind, when we're having the other debate later, Chair, about deputies coming forward.

Please don't take any of this personally. You've done a splendid job here, but it's frustrating to no end.

How much time do I have left here, if any?