Evidence of meeting #19 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was reports.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Yes, I like the idea of the paragraph as well, in addition to the letter the chair has recommended. I think we should ask for both of them.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
How would that work, Chair? When we received the letter, would we incorporate it into the document or add it, or what would we do?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
No, no. We could consider any of the facts in the letter, not statements of intention. We've all seen these letters.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
That's why I am asking you, because that's a whole thing unto itself.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
But if there were a factual statement that we did do this, that we did pass legislation, we could include that in our report.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
So the paragraph we were talking about would be morphed into that and capture that information?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I think we should include the paragraph anyway, just to inform the reading public that this report is a little different from the normal report. Let's acknowledge that these facts, this audit.... Of course we all have to bear in mind that the audit will never change; that's part of the institution now. The audit was tabled in 2007 or 2008. Of course that's separating out the audit itself, whereas the actual audit work was probably done in 2006-2007.
So we are in uncharted waters. I'm at the will of the committee.
Ms. Ratansi.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
I think we need to figure out what is the purpose of our committee.
The committee's purpose is to review what the Auditor General says at a point in time, and that's the snapshot of things. If things have changed, the Auditor General can do another audit on that fact.
Liberal
Yasmin Ratansi Liberal Don Valley East, ON
It's been two years. If this was a problematic area—and it appears that the safeguarding of government information is problematic—then she can do another audit.
I like the idea of inserting a paragraph saying that this was the situation when the audit took place, but I do not want any subjective input in this report stating what work has been done, because I have no idea and there's been no audit since. So let's stick to the facts. I am open to the paragraph you want to put in, but I'm not open to anything else.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
I'm going to reiterate what Ms. Ratansi has just said. My feeling is that new information, up-to-date information, is irrelevant because there's an historical context that exists. It was an audit, and an audit is a snapshot in time. So whatever action has or has not been taken by the department, we'll have to wait for the next audit, which will likely come in the next two or two and a half years. This report will serve as the basis for comparison to show what the circumstances were at the time, two and a half years ago, when the first audit was taken. It will be the baseline, and any new information will be captured in a follow-up audit.
You can bet that she'll do a follow-up audit on these departments because of the number of problems she encountered. And as you rightly mentioned, it's been two and a half years, and audits are now occurring every five years, so it will be two to two and a half years before another one is done.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Thank you.
If this were just as Ms. Ratansi said, just a matter of reporting on the testimony, I would agree with you 100%. But there is a secondary responsibility that we have, and that's called making recommendations. And if those recommendations are out of touch with the reality of today and/or the relative currency, I'm not going to sign a report whose recommendations I don't know make sense today.
Why would I make a recommendation to a department when I know unequivocally that recommendation either has been dealt with or the department's response is absolutely wrong?
This is why I say, put the report in, in the state it is in, and I can agree with that. Let's not separate the history. The history is there, and it should be there, but that's also why we need that paragraph, and/or whatever, to be able to demonstrate. If there is a modification or change that should be in there, then for goodness sake.... In real life, would I recommend something if I knew that it had already been dealt with? I wouldn't.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Mr. Chair, nine of us were not there. We did not hear the hearings, were not privy to this. To follow up on what Mr. Kramp said, how can we possibly make recommendations on something we were not party to, if we were not present at the time?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Okay. We're going back to the same people here. I'm going to bring it to an end.
Madam Faille or Mr. Desnoyers.
Bloc
Luc Desnoyers Bloc Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
I agree with the idea of a paragraph. As for the recommendations, they are mostly about evaluations and follow-up. I am assuming that the departments should eventually provide them. Perhaps they already have started to take steps along those lines. I do not know how all these departments work; I am just a new kid.
I looked at the transcript of the previous meetings. Meili Faille was there at the time, and so was Mr. Christopherson. I noticed that the questions on the recommendations dealt with several of these aspects. It seems to me that we are making life complicated for ourselves. The important thing is that any follow-up must address the situation at the time and not how things are now. The recommendation, which the analysts wrote, I imagine, applied to that point in time. It was a kind of snapshot of the situation. Whatever the case, I completely agree with the idea of the paragraph.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
I'm proposing to bring this to a conclusion, colleagues, and we're going to come back. We probably won't be dealing with this report today.
There are three things on the table.
I take it that regardless of what we do, everyone agrees with putting a paragraph in to relate to historical significance.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
On the issue of a dissenting or supplementary report, the way the Standing Orders read is that those reports can be appended to the main report of the committee after the signature of the chair. They're not part of the actual report of the committee. It has to be approved by the committee, whether or not they allow the appended report, and the committee then determines the length of this report. In most cases, in this committee before, it's been one or two pages, but that's entirely up to the committee. The committee doesn't have any say as to the content once it allows a supplemental report. It's allowed and it's just appended in both official languages. So I would recommend that we deal with that at the time when the report is done, unless you want to have a blanket motion that you allow anybody to--but that's getting a little ridiculous, I think.
On the issue of getting a letter from the deputy minister—and this would be a fact-based letter from the deputy minister—to be considered when we consider the report, let me get the consent of the committee.
Yes?
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Sorry, I have a point of clarification.
Would the letter be in response to updates they've made or to the recommendations they've implemented from the current report, the changes they've made in the department based on the original audit?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
The letter would be a response to the letter to the deputy minister, asking him or her to provide the committee with any facts that have taken place since the auditor's report was issued, whether it's legislation, adoption of policy--in this case, Public Works, the hiring of people. It would be fact-based developments that could be considered by the committee. We don't want glossy statements of intention or principle, or we're going to do this, or we're going to do that. It would have to be fact-based.
Liberal
Bonnie Crombie Liberal Mississauga—Streetsville, ON
Mr. Chairman, I would argue that it would only consider the actionable items recommended by the Auditor General.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Well, yes, it would be based on the auditor's report. It would be specifically related to the auditor's report. They have the auditor's report and they have the recommendations from the auditor. They had that a year and a half ago.