Public Accounts Committee on May 14th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Monsieur Desnoyers.

Mr. Shipley, four minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Fraser and your colleagues, for being here again.

I'd like to focus on chapter 5, if I might, during my short time.

Just to follow up, when I read through this chapter, quite honestly, there are a lot of good things. What we find, I think, in all of the interviews that you perform with us and see with us is that we have long-time and short-time issues that are always going to be in front of us. As you mentioned—actually on page 4—clearly with National Defence there is complexity, and growth, because there's always an emergency readiness and action. Equipment and personnel are it.

I just have a quick question at the start. In 5.9, it says that the Canada first defence strategy was announced in May 2008. I'll get to that in terms of a framework strategy and in terms of risk management, but what are the implications of this strategy for the administration in terms of extra issues that would come up by implementing such a Canada first defence strategy that may or not have been addressed or been prepared for?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll ask Ms. Loschiuk to respond to the question.

[Wendy Loschiuk]

Thank you, Chair.

I think the first thing in the Canada first defence strategy was the change in focus on buying new equipment.That would have had a significant impact on the department.

Secondly, as you mentioned, there was the commitment to grow the Canadian Forces. There as well there would have been some impact on the department to start shifting toward growth instead of staying stable as they've been used to for quite some time.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

I'll go to page 14, where we talk about the risk management. In 2001 the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat introduced the integrated risk management framework. That was sort of my earlier reference.

If we go down, it states, “Introduction of integrated risk management elements is slow”. You indicate in your report, under 5.45, that you had expected, I think at the time of this, “National Defence to have a well-developed approach to risk management”, and you indicate that it only began in 2007. I'm thinking, if I go down a little further, it actually means January 2007. That's when they initiated the first part of the corporate risk profile.

I don't know if that's when it was completed or they started it.

They started it? Okay.

Then it says “the second part”. So they must have finished one part to implement the second part in March 2008, which was just a little over a year later.

One, is this a framework that's been developed at all different stages by different departments? And I think that's the whole impetus of it.

Following on what we just talked about in my first question, about the implementation of the Canada first defence strategy, did you find anything that would have helped or delayed it? Was there anything substantive that would have been a fair consequence to delay it, or was it that they just didn't find it important at the time to get at it?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

As you can imagine, a framework like this in a department as large and complex as National Defence will take a certain amount of time, and there are various steps that it has to go through. But we found a number of problems in the way they're going about this.

One of the main reasons for delay is in paragraph 5.47, which says that there are actually very limited resources assigned to doing this. There aren't a lot of people working on it, and it is a pretty complex exercise.

We go on, of course, later to indicate some of the other problems, such as not consistent terminology approaches throughout the department, which will make it difficult at the end to roll all this up. I think they recognize now that they have to put more attention to this and get on with it, because for the medium- and longer-term planning, this will be really critical. Especially with the increase, as we say, in capital spending or even human resources coming in, it's really important that they do this risk management strategy well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Are we doing five minutes in this round, Chair?

It's four? Oh, boy.

Okay. I will ask my questions and then leave them with you.

[Sheila Fraser]

Oh, oh! Four minutes of questions.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We all know what I'm like: talk, talk, talk. That's why I'm here.

I want to go to chapter 3 on health and safety in federal buildings. I appreciate that my colleague Mr. Kramp raised something on this. This is one of those things, in the context of the millions and billions of dollars we deal with, and of conflict of interest, and defence budgets, and war planning, and the like, that could easily get overlooked.

When you're talking about their not doing the fire drills, at first blush that can sound pretty mundane. But, boy, if there's ever a disaster and then an inquiry and the first piece of evidence is that there was no fire drill, suddenly it's headlines.

Let's recognize that our first priority, even beyond the programs we deliver, with a couple of exceptions—armed forces, RCMP, emergency response personnel—and our first obligation to the people we hire to implement those policies is their health and safety. There are hundreds of thousands of Canadians who work in buildings we're responsible for, and probably millions of people who care about those individuals.

So I'm going to urge, if we can, Chair, that we find time to maybe do.... I'm just suggesting this.

But I also liked the questions that Mr. Desnoyers was asking around VIA, given the importance of the future, of moving Canadians around this big country, about the importance of moving to rail in terms of the environment--all those reasons. We have a report that's telling us there are major problems.

I'm going to suggest to colleagues that perhaps we could find a way to maybe do one hour on this report, and pick one, two, or three within, spending maybe an hour or 45 minutes on each.

The other one I want to raise is the Great Lakes Pilotage Authority. I'm being right upfront that I'm being very parochial. Hamilton is affected by this in a big way, but so are literally tens of millions of other Canadians. At Hamilton we have one of the major ports on the Great Lakes-St.Lawrence Seaway system, and there are real issues here about the qualifications of the pilots and the navigators.

There are recommendations, if I have this right, that domestic shipping no longer be exempt from the certification process, or no longer be exempt from having to....

Help me on this; there's a piece that they have to do and they're exempted from it. Perhaps you can fill that in for me.

But there's a piece there, and there's a recommendation that came out in 2002 saying, hey, we ought to move away from this.

Again, as one of the Great Lakes port representatives, and thinking about all the cities that are impacted by ports, and here we have a health and safety issue on our waters.... I don't think it needs to be a long two-hour examination, but it would seem to me that we ought not to leave that untouched.

Also, there's the building issue. If I can, I would note the example you gave of 66 Slater Street. Lest anyone watching think, “Really, fire plans...?”, it's the confusion among departments, because they didn't know which department was responsible—one of them was the PCO, by the way. The report says: As such, fire safety planning risks were not addressed for the building for almost a three-year period...endangering the health and safety of the federal employees located at 66 Slater Street.

It seems to me that's an alarm bell and that we have an obligation to follow up on it.

Thank you, Chair.

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, perhaps I could clarify the question of the Great Lakes pilotage. Canadian vessels that only operate on the Great Lakes are exempted from having compulsory pilots; they can use their own captains and people on board. The problem is that the authority does not know whether those people are actually competent to be piloting.

The exemption has been in place since 1972. There have been numerous studies and recommendations made over the years that there be more rigorous conditions attached to these exemptions and that there be some way for the authority to assure itself that the people who are piloting these ships actually are competent to do so.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, particularly since they're in the same waters as people in personal pleasure craft.

That concludes my questions, Chair. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Christopherson.

Thank you, Ms. Fraser.

Mr. Young, you have four minutes.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I share Mr. Christopherson's concerns. I think “mundane” is the exact word you'd use. When you say “health and safety in federal office buildings”, it's not very interesting at all. But in fact it's very interesting. It's very important. It's the health and safety of federal employees and others.

You said, Madam Fraser, that many departments did not understand their roles and responsibilities for fire safety planning. Could you tell the committee, please, what it was that they didn't understand? What is missing there?

[Sheila Fraser]

They didn't understand what the requirements were under the act. The major occupying department in a building is the one that is responsible for the fire plans within that building. In the case of 66 Slater, two departments couldn't agree which was the major occupying department, and so nobody did the fire plans for three years.

They didn't seem to know the legal obligations. They have to have a fire drill every year, but in certain buildings called “high buildings” you have to as well do drills on specific floors. We found that this wasn't being done.

So there's just a general lack of knowledge of their own responsibilities and requirements under the laws.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You said in the report that they “could not demonstrate” that they were conducting fire drills in 18 buildings. Although you just commented, I'd like you to expand on your comment, please. My question is, what was really going on? Was it just that they couldn't demonstrate it, or were they conducting drills and no one was recording it, or what was it?

[Sheila Fraser]

Our impression is that for the large part, they were not conducting drills. I sent letters to all the deputy ministers or heads of agencies concerned with those buildings in December, and I suspect there were a lot of people out on the street during the wintertime because the drills were being held.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Every person who commented on the report “concurred” or “agreed”—I feel sympathy for anybody who reported on this, because they had to find a way to say they agreed in about four different ways—but what have they done since?

[Sheila Fraser]

Of the 18 buildings, 16 have held drills since. For the other two, there are drills planned within the next month or so. So certainly within the next month, all will have had the drills. I would hope that from then on, now that they've been advised of this, they will continue to do so.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

What were the high-priority deficiencies that were not corrected with regard to health in those buildings? Was anyone's health damaged by any of these issues, to your knowledge?

[Sheila Fraser]

I don't have the information. I'm not sure whether we have somebody here who does. It would not be anything that is really urgent, but something that has to be done within the next year. That's why it's considered high-priority. If it were actually something that could impact upon someone's health, it would be considered an urgent repair and would be dealt with.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

So there's no asbestos coming out of the ceiling, or anything like that?

[Sheila Fraser]

No, I don't believe.... I can check, Chair, with the team and get back to the committee, if ever that were the case, but it's not my understanding that there was anything such as that.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, and thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Young.

Mr. Kania, please.