Public Accounts Committee on May 8th, 2008

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Fraser, I would like to come back to the famous Chapter 2. At paragraph 2.30, you state that “over $7 million of items could not be located”. Is that an estimate for one year or an amount taking account of all the orders placed since the beginning of the mission?

[Sheila Fraser]

That is based on the inventory from the beginning, which includes all items coming in and coming out and the situation at a given date.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

At paragraph 2.32, you state that the number of contract personnel has increased significantly. Do you have any data about the number of contract personnel in proportion to the number of troops in Afghanistan at this time?

[Sheila Fraser]

Exhibit 2.1 shows the number of support staff. I could perhaps provide you with more detailed information but I believe that the support staff has tripled. In paragraph 2.10, we say that the number of support personnel has tripled between May 2006 and July 2007.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

So, it is impossible to say that there is a relationship between the arrival of contract personnel and the disappearance of equipment and ordered items.

[Sheila Fraser]

That is right. As a matter of fact, more contract personnel is being used for equipment maintenance and supply functions.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Do you know if contract personnel has to have a security clearance?

[Sheila Fraser]

I could check but I suppose that anyone deployed in Afghanistan must have the proper security clearance.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I would like to come back to the question I asked yesterday about Chapter 1. In your report, the $1.9 billion of fees charged are detailed up to an amount of $661 million, which leaves a gap of $1.2 billion.

Which are the main departments charging those fees? If you could come up with a total amount of $1.9 billion, you must have received detailed information from all the departments. Could we get the list of the main fees charged by departments and agencies?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, Mr. Chair. In the next few days, we will provide the committee with a detailed list for the $1.9 billion amount.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Excellent.

Any additional questions?

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

You said that the $7 million of missing equipment or items not received do not represent a single delivery but is a cumulative amount for several years. Does this not confirm the theory--and I underline that it's only a theory--that there is a black market? If the amount was related to the disappearance of a complete inventory, we might say that an order was not delivered or was lost somewhere on the way but if there is $100,000 worth of equipment missing with each delivery... Is that a possibility?

[Sheila Fraser]

Obviously, the gap may be due to this kind of situation but we believe that it is mainly due to the fact that people use a manual system in Kandahar. They receive 85 tonnes of equipment each week and each item has to be coded. If there is a coding mistake, they will obviously not be able to find the item and...

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

But that only reinforces that theory.

[Sheila Fraser]

I agree but we also say in the report that they have found another $6.6 million of items, which means that the problem is really due to coding and follow-up issues. They do not know what is in the containers until they open them.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Could we get a report from the Canadian Forces about that $7 million? That amount is surely related to specific items.

[Sheila Fraser]

The committee would have to ask National Defence.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Does that mean that it is up to the Public Accounts Committee to put the question to DND?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Mr. Chair, since this obviously raises a question, we should ask the Department to give us a detailed list of the missing items, especially considering that the Auditor General has said that commanding officers did not report any missing items from their inventories or their orders.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Laforest. We'll put that on the agenda for Monday's steering committee meeting.

If the committee decides to have a hearing on this particular chapter, the Department of National Defence will be notified to provide that information in advance. If we decide not to have a hearing, we will be asking for that information for circulation within the committee.

Mr. Lake, you have five minutes.

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

I would like to talk a little bit about chapter 7, but I would like to start by giving some background on why I think it's important.

My riding is a very immigration-heavy riding, and I oftentimes have constituents come visit me because of problems they've had with temporary resident visas. They've been turned down, and oftentimes we're dealing with a situation where it might be a grandparent, for example, wanting to come for the birth of their first grandchild, or something as important as that. Sometimes we're dealing with temporary foreign workers--unattached young adults who want to come as temporary foreign workers.

In both cases, the main reason we hear for the denial is insufficient ties to the home country. In other words, they don't believe they're likely to go back, or they're at least a risk, I guess, not worth taking to accept these applications. There's enough of a risk that they might not go back. Of course, the number of resources required to remove somebody and go through the entire legal process if someone decides to stay are so great that it hinders the process.

When we deal with this issue of being unable to remove people who break the rules, what we're really doing is hurting people who are willing to follow the rules, or probably willing to follow the rules through this process.

The second problem, of course, is queue jumping. In permanent resident applications, there is a backlog. If the perception is that it's easy to come here and stay and there aren't going to be efforts taken to remove somebody, I think it creates an increased incentive to jump the queue by coming here illegally, and that's a real challenge.

First off, I'll follow up on Mr. Wrzesnewskyj's question about temporary resident visas. I think I know the answer. Does the 41,000 or 63,000 people we're talking about not include people who have come here on a temporary resident visa and have simply not left after their six months?

[Sheila Fraser]

Potentially it could, if there has been a warrant issued against that person. It's the numbers of warrants outstanding, ordering people to leave the country, and that could be for a variety of reasons with those forms.

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

But because of this lack of exit controls, in most of those cases we wouldn't know whether they left the country or not, correct?

[Sheila Fraser]

That's correct, if they have not informed the agency that they have left or are leaving.