Public Accounts Committee on June 20th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

I want to welcome everyone here today.

This meeting is in connection with chapter 5, “Passports Services—Passport Canada”, of the February 2007 report of the Auditor General of Canada.

The committee is very pleased, of course, to have, representing the Office of the Auditor General, the Auditor General, Sheila Fraser; Richard Flageole, Assistant Auditor General; and Paul Morse, principal.

From the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade we have the accounting officer and deputy minister, Mr. Len Edwards.

And from Passport Canada we have Gérald Cossette, the chief executive officer; Jody Thomas, chief operating officer; and Gary McDonald, director general of policy and planning.

On behalf of all committee members, I want to extend to each and every one of you a very warm welcome.

What I propose to do, members, is start now and we'll go to 5:15. Then we'll just adjourn to discuss committee business, and in particular the meeting scheduled for tomorrow.

Before calling on opening statements, there are three issues I want to bring to the committee's attention. First of all, I was in Ghana for the last nine days on a seminar dealing with public accounts and the public affairs committee of Ghana. I want to thank my co-chair, Brian Fitzpatrick, for chairing the meetings during my absence. I trust the members all behaved themselves.

[Brian Fitzpatrick, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

It was okay for four of them, but I have to admit that I took on quite a bit of water at the fifth meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

There are a couple of other items I want to bring to the attention not so much of colleagues,but to other members of government.

It's come to my attention in regard to the tenth report of the committee on chapter 4, the Canadian firearms program, of the May 2006 report of the Auditor General of Canada, which was adopted by the committee on November 30 and tabled in the House on December 7, and to which the committee requested a response in the usual time of 120 days, that Minister Day presented a response but he only responded to one recommendation. There were eight recommendations in the report, and of course a lot of it dealt with the RCMP. It's my view that the last thing the RCMP or Minister Day need is an application to be held in contempt of Parliament. I have asked that someone bring that to the attention of the department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police so that that can be corrected immediately.

The second item—

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

Pardon? What did you say there, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I would ask that someone bring it to his attention.

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

Who bring what to whose attention?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Minister Day.

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

Who is going to do that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Anyone watching this show. I am just bringing it to the public's attention, Mr. Williams.

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

Are you asking the clerk to do this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The clerk has brought it to their attention.

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

Okay. The clerk has brought it to the attention of the minister that we are still waiting for some responses. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, you're correct.

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

Okay. Now what's this about the RCMP?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

They're involved. Seven of the eight recommendations had to do with the RCMP.

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

Yes, but it's not the RCMP who respond. It's the minister; it's the Government of Canada that responds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The Government of Canada responds.

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

That's right. So I presume you have asked the clerk to write to the minister to complete the report. Is that what you're saying?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That's correct, yes.

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

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

And last, on the hearing that was held about three weeks ago involving Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Guité, Mr. Pelletier did indicate to the committee that he would respond with certain additional information in 10 days. He hasn't done so. The clerk is corresponding with him, but I've asked him to follow up with a letter. So I will keep the committee members apprised of those developments.

Let's go to opening statements.

Ms. Fraser, do you have an opening statement?

[Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

We thank you for this opportunity to present the results of our follow-up audit of Passport Canada. As you mentioned, I'm accompanied today by Richard Flageole, Assistant Auditor General, and Paul Morse, the principal responsible for this audit.

In the audit we followed up the progress Passport Canada made in addressing the recommendations of our April 2005 report. In that report we noted that Passport Canada was struggling to meet the increasing security expectations and demands for responsive service and that significant improvements in the processes for determining passport entitlement were necessary. We conducted a follow-up audit at the request of this committee.

In our February 2007 report we found that in the relatively short interval between the original audit and the follow-up audit, Passport Canada has made satisfactory progress towards addressing many of our recommendations. The areas in which satisfactory progress has been made are set out in our report. However, we also found that a number of weaknesses remained in the critical areas of identity verification and security. Confirming that the applicants are Canadian citizens, are who they say they are, and are entitled to a Canadian passport is critical to the integrity of this travel document.

Passport Canada must rely on provincial and territorial registries and on Citizenship and Immigration Canada for data to verify birth and citizenship information. While Passport Canada accesses some of this data instantaneously through electronic links as part of a pilot project with two provinces, those being Alberta and British Columbia, it had not established the electronic links it needed with the other provinces and with Citizenship and Immigration Canada to ensure the integrity of basic identification data. This is a complex undertaking that requires cooperation of other government organizations at the federal, provincial, and territorial levels. In the meantime, examiners will continue to have difficulty confirming vital statistics.

To further strengthen its ability to assess entitlement, Passport Canada successfully integrated Correctional Service Canada information regarding persons on parole or incarcerated persons. However, it faced problems in effectively utilizing information provided by the Canadian Police Information Centre, also known as CPIC, to check for those individuals charged with serious crimes.

Security is another critical element affecting the integrity of the Canadian passport. Our follow-up audit found that Transport Canada had not conducted a detailed security risk assessment as we recommended in 2005. As part of our security concerns in 2005, we reported that the access granted to employees who operate the automated system that issues passports was poorly controlled. Although we expected that Passport Canada would have resolved these problems by the time of our follow-up audit, we found that this was not the case. Some individuals who are not examiners still have the critical access rights or the profile that allowed them to trigger production of a passport without authorization and independent verification.

Concerning service to clients, I would like to point out that our audit was completed in August 2006 well before the implementation of new requirements under the US Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. However, we looked at how Passport Canada was preparing for this initiative and expressed concern as to whether it was prepared to successful deal with the potential increasing demand.

Finally, it is important to note that our office has not performed any audit work on this entity since we published our follow-up report. In its response to our report, Passport Canada committed to regularly update its action plan to address the outstanding items pertaining to our original recommendations and to publish the update in its annual report. This committee may want to monitor progress and ensure that outstanding issues are being satisfactorily addressed—in particular issues surrounding security.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening statement. We would be pleased to answer your committee's questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mrs. Fraser. Merci beaucoup.

I understand, Mr. Edwards, you have an opening statement on behalf of the department and Passport Canada.

[Leonard Edwards, Deputy Minister, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Yes, I do.

Mr. Chairman, let me thank you and members of the committee for inviting me, as accounting officer for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, to update you on Passport Canada's response to the Auditor General's status report.

Joining me are officials from Passport Canada. You are probably familiar with Gérald Cossette, who is the chief executive officer of Passport Canada. He will be assisting me primarily in answering questions. Also with him are Ms. Jody Thomas, chief operating officer, and Mr. Gary McDonald, director general of the policy and planning bureau.

More than ever before, Mr. Chairman, the rapid delivery of passports must be balanced with the increased security needs that characterize this new century. In this context, it's quite telling that the Auditor General reported, in 2005, that Passport Canada was struggling to meet higher expectations for security and growing demands for service. Indeed, all fronts are busy.

Further to the Auditor General's report of 2005, Passport Canada swiftly adopted an action plan to address all identified deficiencies. This plan included specific initiatives, deliverables and target implementation dates. As requested by this committee, Passport Canada's 2006-07 annual report will include an updated action plan with revised deliverables and target dates where warranted.

Passport Canada's action plan drove the agency's efforts and has allowed it to make steady yet very diligent progress. Last February the Auditor General complimented Passport Canada for addressing 16 out of the 20 original audit recommendations within a very short period of time.

The four areas the Auditor General still found problematic at the time of the follow-up audit—and I'm repeating what she has just said—were: the absence of a thorough security risk assessment; the lack of a quality control program for entitlement decisions; lax practices in the area of access to the automated passport issuance system; and fourth, lack of an integrated human resources strategy at Passport Canada. I'm pleased to provide members of the committee with an update on these four areas today.

First and foremost, Passport Canada has made good progress in completing a comprehensive security risk assessment of its operations. This task is of such magnitude that it had to be divided into smaller deliverables in order to be properly addressed. A series of draft papers have been, or will be, completed in the very near future, and a final package will be shared in its entirety with the office of the Auditor General following a complete internal review. Passport Canada will also develop a strategy to address any deficiencies identified by this comprehensive security assessment.

Secondly, further to a detailed review of how entitlement decisions are made for all available service channels, both domestically and abroad, Passport Canada is now putting the finishing touches on a quality control program for its entitlement decisions. The full implementation of this program is planned for this current fiscal year.

Thirdly, tighter controls and better access practices have been implemented to safeguard the automated passport issuance system. For instance, a new web-based account creation process will ensure tight controls over the privileges and rights given to staff working on this system. For example, it will ensure strict control over the privileges accorded to staff who take on temporary work assignments in other positions or other offices. Moreover, all access requests to the system must now be approved by the Security Bureau of Passport Canada. Furthermore, the Operations Bureau reviews accounts and profiles on a random basis every three months to ensure that the system is secure and effective.

It should also be noted that Passport Canada is developing a new generation of applications that will improve account controls. These applications will look at account expiry dates, lock-outs for failed login attempts and so on. The development of these applications is well under way and will be completed this fiscal year.

Fourth, and finally, Passport Canada is also developing an integrated human resource planning process. This process has been designed as an integral part of Passport Canada's strategic framework, and it is to be closely integrated into the corporate planning process. It will be implemented this fall.

Although our main purpose here is to discuss the 2007 status report from the Auditor General, I'd also like to share with this committee three other security-related initiatives undertaken by Passport Canada, as I believe it will benefit our discussion.

First, from Canada's missions abroad, Passport Canada successfully repatriated printing capacity for regular blue passports, thereby ensuring that all regular passports, no matter where an individual applies, are subject to the same high security standards.

Second, Passport Canada is working closely with Correctional Services Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in the area of information sharing and security. At present, Passport Canada has access to offender information from Correctional Services Canada. The operational impact of building a Canadian Police Information Centre query into the entitlement process is being assessed.

Finally, Passport Canada has staffed six of the eight regional security advisor positions, thus launching a new initiative aimed at strengthening the security of the organization and the integrity of the passport issuance process. The six security advisors, working in regional directorates across the country, liaise with headquarters and provide expert advice to regional operations on all security matters.

Mr. Chairman, Canadians are expecting quality service at a reasonable price. To meet these expectations, Passport Canada is working on a four-pronged approach that should position the organization well going into the future.

The introduction on August 15, 2007, of a new renewal process for passport holders is the first step in the simplification of Passport Canada's policies and procedures. Combined with the future use of technology, such as the passport online form, such improvements will allow Canadians to renew or apply for their passports more easily, hence reducing the need for Canadians to go to Passport Canada counters. In announcing this in May, Minister MacKay also indicated that we would be moving to a simplified guarantor policy on October 1.

Second, Passport Canada will expand its reach closer to applicants without investing in new infrastructure. This is also part of our vision for the future. This expansion would be done through partnerships with other agencies, such as Service Canada or Canada Post.

Third, Passport Canada will need to automate most of its clerical functions and transfer the freed resources toward its core mandate: the authentication of identity, the protection of passport documents, and the integrity of the issuance process—key elements in the Auditor General's report.

Fourth, as Passport Canada accrues savings through the first three components of the strategy, it needs to invest significantly in new electronic systems and security features that would reinforce the quality of the passport.

Mr. Chairman, my colleagues and I would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Edwards.

We're now going to the first round of seven minutes.

Mr. Rota, for seven minutes.