Public Accounts Committee on May 2nd, 2007

[Sheila Fraser]

There are several that I think have significant improvement—Obviously, the RCMP and the forensic labs. Foreign Affairs and the human resource management I think is troubling. The CAIS program—the government is certainly taking action on that.

Other than that, I think NORAD, National Defence, not because we can really go back and undo what has happened, but they are continuing with the modernization of the NORAD system. Are they going to update their statement of requirements, and are they going to ensure that the system they are using currently meets those? And what are they going to do about this above-ground complex that doesn't pass the security checks? I guess those would be the ones.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

For me, I think the RCMP issue is serious, not necessarily even on its own but more because we're just coming out of this RCMP pension administration issue.

I read your conclusion in paragraph 7.88: “In examining statements made to Parliament by the government and the RCMP since our 2000 audit, we found large discrepancies with our findings from this audit.” It just sounds so familiar, with a lot of the issues we're dealing with on the pension administration issue. It seems to me that there's a trend here, and it's a trend of perception—the concern for perception trumping the underlying causes of some of these problems and senior management not addressing those things.

I'm curious, are there any other studies or audits that you have that have to do with the RCMP that you can tell us about that we should anticipate, or is this kind of, at this point—?

[Sheila Fraser]

We have nothing in the immediate future on the RCMP. We will, of course, come back to them at some point in the future, but there is nothing under way right now.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

Okay. I understand that the RCMP has provided a detailed action plan for you to address the recommendations. I'm wondering if you think these measures will address the backlog in DNA cases.

[Sheila Fraser]

Many of the action items deal with really trying to ascertain why the backlog is occurring, doing benchmarking, comparisons. It will depend upon the rigour with which those action items are carried out, the analysis and then the corrective action taken to deal with them.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

One minute.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont, AB]

I was just wondering if you can explain what kinds of quality issues were identified. You talked about quality issues. Are you satisfied that the quality issues have been resolved and that the test didn't impact the prosecution of criminal cases?

[Sheila Fraser]

We didn't go as far as to look at impact. The problems we reported on were problems with the automated extraction of DNA. I know they have found some of the problems that have caused that. I'm not sure if they have found all of them. What is worrisome is that this particular problem was never put to the quality management system reported and managed through that system. So we would want assurance in the future that if there were any other problems that came up, they were immediately reported and were managed through that system, rather than in the kind of ad hoc manner that this was done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lake. Thank you, Mrs. Fraser.

Before I ask Mrs. Fraser if she has any closing remarks, I understand we have a distinguished guest in our midst. I'm going to ask Mr. Williams to introduce him.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Today we have in our audience Mr. Wayne Strelioff. I've known Mr. Strelioff for a number of years. He's a former auditor general of the Province of British Columbia and a former auditor general of the Province of Saskatchewan. He's now retired and doing volunteer work as the chair of the Quality Worklife-Quality Healthcare Collaborative. We certainly appreciate having him here in the audience, and we want to recognize him.

Since he's sitting behind the Auditor General, we now have the answer to the question of who is watching the Auditor General. Of course, it is another auditor general.

We welcome you, Wayne.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

On behalf of the committee, Mr. Strelioff, I want to welcome you here to Ottawa and to this committee meeting.

Mrs. Fraser, do you have any closing comments you want to make to the committee?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank you and the members of the committee for your interest in the report. We look forward to hearings on some of the issues we've brought forward. Hopefully that will be in the near future, but of course that's up to the committee to decide.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I want to thank you again for your excellent reports, and I thank all your staff for their diligence.

I take it the bells are going to ring any minute now, so the meeting is adjourned.