Evidence of meeting #29 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was recommendations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Ms. Fraser and Ms. Sachs, good afternoon.
In the performance report, the Welch & Company auditor declared that the financial statements, on the whole, faithfully reflect the financial situation, etc.
Ms. Fraser, I think that it is a regular occurrence that an auditor also sends the client a letter which is not a part of the financial statements. Was it the case here? Did the auditor send a letter with observations addressed to the client in a non-public way?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I know that we received some in the past, but not last year.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Very well.
When you received these documents in the past, were they public documents?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No, they were not public at the time.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
If I made an application pursuant to the Access to Information Act, would I get it?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I have no objection to that. At the time, we were not subject to the Access to Information Act. We did not provide that kind of information. However, if a parliamentarian or anyone else wants to obtain it, I have no objection to that.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
There was none for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, 2007.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Thank you.
In the estimates, part III, page 23, you list your planned special examinations. This is the list for 2008-09, yet you have one shown for 2010. Is that a typo, or are you anticipating more than two years ahead of time?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No. As I said, we were not very good about meeting statutory deadlines, so we are working very hard to move some to six months earlier. One of the other things we've tried to do is schedule them so that we balance out the workload. We had a lot of special examinations that came at the same time. So if the crown agreed, we would move some earlier.
The Canada Council, for example, is 2010. This is new. This is one of the crowns that were previously exempt, and now have to have one. So we've been trying to move them earlier so that we can balance out our workload.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I have limited time, so I hesitate to tackle complex matters, but I'll tackle one and perhaps come back to this.
You mentioned in your opening remarks, and I find it in part III, the matter of preserving the independence of officers of Parliament. That is a very serious matter. You say in here that you've provided Treasury Board Secretariat with five working principles that you believe would guide the application of government policies to officers of Parliament.
Have these working principles been shared with the committee before?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No, I believe they were shared with the panel on funding and oversight of the officers of Parliament.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It's not only funding; it's administrative policies as well.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Would you be prepared to share that document with this committee?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Absolutely.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I think that's very important.
Would you also keep us advised periodically of the progress of your discussions with the Treasury Board Secretariat in terms of the acceptance and application of these principles?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I would be glad to do that.
I will just let you know briefly that what we have done is gone through all of the policies to determine which aspects—it's not necessarily the whole policy, because there could be specific aspects of the policy—are most problematic. We're doing this on behalf of all the officers of Parliament. So it's a working group of all the officers.
We have identified I think about 20 or 25 policies that we believe are more problematic. What we are doing is discussing with the Treasury Board Secretariat what the issue is, why we think it's a problem, and what we propose as an alternative. It could be more public disclosure. There are different ways of doing it.
So those discussions have begun.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
Are you keeping parliamentarians involved with those discussions? We have a keen interest in this.
Obviously, we are interested.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I would be glad to. We have been largely working with the panel on funding and oversight, so that's where we've been doing this. But I can certainly give this committee regular updates and share that information with the committee. I'd be pleased to do so.
Liberal
Mauril Bélanger Liberal Ottawa—Vanier, ON
I hope they'll have a chance to come back.
I heard some bells here. Am I allowed to continue?
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
It's the chair's prerogative. We can go back to you if your colleagues let you.
Monsieur Petit.
Conservative
Daniel Petit Conservative Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Madam.
As the Auditor General, you have a role that I could describe as a policing role. I do not want to use this term, but in the public eye, you are a person who is in charge of surveillance.
I understood the explanations regarding the requested supplementary estimates. This does entail an extra load of work, special mandates, etc. In my riding, people are wondering about this. You're asking for more than a million dollars, but I do not even know if that amount will allow you to carry out all your mandates. One mandate that I find most interesting is the study of federal transfer payments to provinces and territories.
I am from Quebec, and this is a very sensitive issue. As soon as you raise it, people look at you with their eyes wide open as if to say "What are you doing here?" People think that these billions of dollars are now in our hands and that you have nothing more to do with that money.
In November 2008, would you be able to launch a study on federal transfer payments? This would be a very large file.