Public Accounts Committee on April 21st, 2009

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm going to run out of time, I think, so I'm just going to put the last three. One minute.

I want to know from you about the risk sensitivity of the projects and what the timing of the monitoring of the fund is. And from the Auditor General, if I could get in a quick one, we'd like to know what happens when your recommendations, which we think are always so sound, are not followed.

Let's try to get those into the last minute.

[Wayne Wouters]

As we move forward with the spending, I'll try to explain the steps that we're taking.

The first step is to ensure that you have a well-defined program under which projects are approved. For example, your recreational infrastructure programming will fund the upgrade of arenas and other recreational facilities. The first step in the approval process is to ensure that you have a program in place that has very clear terms and conditions for what does qualify and what does not qualify. Approval of those terms and conditions is the role of the Treasury Board. That's basically where our role becomes critical. The departments will recommend them, we'll review them, we'll approve them, and associated with that, we'll approve the funding and the source of funds. Should it come out of vote 35, if it's needed? Can it wait until supplementary estimates (A)? Can it wait for supplementary estimates (B)? Is it already in the Budget Implementation Act?

The board approves the program design and the associated funding. Once that's done, then it's the responsibility of the departments. So in the case of that program, it's the regional agencies, I believe, and Industry Canada, and they are then responsible to take that program, look at the terms and conditions, and say which projects qualify and which projects do not qualify.

We are not, just to be clear, allocating vote 35 to projects. We're allocating vote 35 to programs that were specified in the budget. To do that, departments have to give us what they think are their cashflow requirements for the time period they need, and that's how we make our decision on vote 35.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Kramp, four minutes.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you.

I have just a quick statement, then followed by a question.

I would like to commend my colleague David for his comments regarding the capacity capability and the results from both our Auditor General's department and Treasury Board. I think, as most of our colleagues know, if criticism were warranted, we wouldn't be shy about that either.

Today, honestly, I think Canadian taxpayers should be very encouraged when they see the level of accountability and the level of professionalism we have within what I'll call our bureaucracy here. I say that with the greatest of respect. I'm proud to be a member of Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption, and as such, we see so many nations that don't have that capacity. Yet on a positive note, I met with a group of Australian parliamentarians today, nine of them, and they intimated that they were deeply impressed as well with the level of accountability and our structure that we have in the country here.

So our thanks to you all. But that means we should never be satisfied. We should always be looking for more and always be looking for improvement.

Just to clarify one particular point as we go forward, I'd like to ask both parties the same question, but from a different perspective. I want to discuss the risk framework. As we go forward, whether it's with infrastructure, stimulus, and/or others for risk management, where do we set the bar? Who views the bar in what fashion? As Mr. Wouters, I believe, said, when they were talking about the Mazankowski report, their risk and uncertainty, the statement that went along with that would sort of define it from that perspective. Yet in the letter of May 5 that the Auditor General sent to Mr. Wouters, you mentioned “an appropriate risk-based framework for governance”.

What is “appropriate”? What is the accepted level? Are we both talking the same language, and where is that? If we don't agree on what appropriate risk management is, then what direction do we need to go on this? Could I have a definition from both the Treasury Board and the Auditor General as to what you would consider that to be?

[Wayne Wouters]

Again, I can't give you a definition of what an appropriate level of risk in risk management would be. I think what we all recognize is that the level of risk will go up when you go from the level of spending and increase it by $20 billion.

A very important part of this exercise is that there is a framework in place where we can identify those risks early in the process and ensure we have mitigating measures in place. Governments make decisions every day about the level of risk, and I think the view is that in order to deal with the economic stimulus package, that level of risk must go up in order to spend as quickly as we can.

What we have been doing with departments is working as hard as we can, not only on an individual program basis but overall, from the point of view of how this department manages its organization and what kind of risk frameworks they have in place now. That has been part and parcel going back....

I talked about the management accountability framework. One area of management we have been measuring for the last six years is risk management. We are now at a point where I believe around 90% of departments are at acceptable or strong in what they have put in place by way of a risk management framework. So it doesn't mean that mistakes won't happen, and we will see problems, but I think what we've been trying to do overall is ensure that we are managing these risks as appropriately as we can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Kramp and Mr. Wouters.

Just before we go to Madame Faille, I want to go back to Mr. Smith. Can you table with the committee those two booklets on departmental performance reports?

[Alister Smith]

I'd be very happy to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Also, Mr. Monette, a number of questions have been addressed to you on vote 35. I think it would be good if you could present to the committee a two- or three-page brief just outlining.... It's a little different and the committee is not used to dealing with it. I'm not going to question you as that was a decision made by Parliament, but it is in reverse to the normal course of events we are used to seeing.

Could you table with the committee just a brief note as to how the appropriations are carried out within Treasury Board and how the accounting is recorded? I think you can sense there is some confusion.

Madame Faille, six minutes, s'il vous plaît.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wouters, my question concerns the Policy Suite Renewal, which appears on slide 14 of your presentation. It is written in small print, but I can see a certain effort to streamline the policies of Treasury Board. Some of them have been rescinded. It says that 49 policies have been rescinded and 28 are ready to be rescinded.

Which policy sectors are we talking about and why were these policies rescinded?

[Frank Des Rosiers, Assistant Secretary, Priorities and Planning, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Thank you for the question.

This process was begun a few years ago. The goal was not to eliminate one policy rather than another, but rather to do a spring cleaning, if I may use that expression.

Over the years, more and more rules have been created and there was no clear structure for them. Often, there were problems of consistency, where one rule contradicted another. Some of them were very detailed and intended more for line department officials, whereas others were intended more for deputy ministers. This made it complicated to comply with all of the rules, even for Treasury Board employees, and even more so for the departments that were required to enforce them.

We therefore undertook an exhaustive process. We discussed the type of structure that we wanted and then established the rules that were deemed essential to carry out all tasks. This is how we reduced the number of policies on this list from 180 to 44.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Can you give us an example of a policy that has been rescinded?

[Frank Des Rosiers]

There are many of them. One of them has to do with financial administration measures. Some 80 policy instruments were in place and we have reduced this number considerably. Some of these policies concerned the management of taxi chit purchases, petty cash or the current expenditures of administrations. They were things that should not have been covered by a policy, but rather by a directive or certain ministerial guidelines.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Changes have been made. For example, there was a policy review regarding employee travel, within the country, from abroad to Canada or from Canada abroad.

[Frank Des Rosiers]

That's right.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

A number of policies are ready to be rescinded. Is that the final figure? Has the process been completed?

[Frank Des Rosiers]

No, but it will be completed in this fiscal year. We expect 90% of these 44 policies to be rescinded. We expect there to be 44 at the end of the process, but this figure may vary slightly, according to the viewpoint of the President of the Treasury Board, of course. All of these policies must be approved by the ministers.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

So perhaps they have not all been approved yet. Are they available on the Treasury Board Web site, in a specific place?

[Frank Des Rosiers]

Yes, on the Treasury Board site, under the heading "TB Policy Suite Renewal."

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

To what extent do you take the Auditor General's recommendations into consideration?

[Frank Des Rosiers]

In general?

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

When you decide which policies to rescind, enhance or renew, to what extent do you take into account her recommendations, whether it be in matters of public appointments, information technology, political votes, information services or human resources? Each of the sectors you are evaluating here could be used as an example.

[Frank Des Rosiers]

I would be ill-advised to answer otherwise, but of course, we take the Auditor General's viewpoint into consideration. We also take into account the opinions of our colleagues from various departments who are called upon to administer each of these areas of expertise. Of course, we also consider our in-house expertise, as well as the best practices that are used in other governments, not only in Canada but also abroad. All these elements contribute to the efforts we make in policy renewal.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci beaucoup.

I apologize, I have to move on.

Mr. Weston, four minutes.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Mr. Chair, I thought to wrap yourself in the Canadian flag you had to cheer for the Vancouver Canucks. After hearing Mr. Christopherson and Mr. Kramp, I think maybe you have to cheer for the Auditor General.

Madam Fraser, you told us before about the work we're doing abroad through your department. We heard Mr. Wouters say today that we have a lot of countries looking at our model of accountability and maybe some countries that are adjusting our model.

I think you said today, Madam Fraser, that our first Auditor General began before Confederation. Is that correct?

[Sheila Fraser]

It was after Confederation.