Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

This is “The chair has a few questions”, Mr. Duncan. That's been the practice of this committee. I know you're not on the committee, but that is how--

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

It's certainly not the practice in my committee.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

On the same point of order, Chair, I've been on this committee for a year now. I've never said anything before, but since Mr. Duncan has raised the issue... Your practice is to generally take two or three or four minutes every meeting with either somewhat partisan or fully partisan questions, which effectively adds about three or four minutes to the Liberal time in the committee. That's not what we agreed to for our standing orders for this committee in the first place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson has a point of order.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I wasn't finished, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

We never said anything about it because we think you're a good chair otherwise, but now that Mr. Duncan has raised it, I believe he's right. I believe you're effectively adding to the Liberal time with these questions at this time on this matter.

I did want to get that on the record.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I respect that Mr. Duncan is not part of the committee, and that Mr. Young has been here in the past. The only person who has served on this committee longer than I have is the chair.

If I go back to the days when I first got here, it was Mr. John Williams, a Conservative, who was the chair. All the time I've been here, it's been built into the timing formula, and understood, that the chair is more than just a traffic cop in terms of us speaking, just because of the nature of the work we do here.

If you think it has spilled into partisanship, fair game, but the role that the chair is performing right now is not unlike that of the chair at almost every meeting we've had, going back to Mr. Williams, who was a Conservative.

If the reports are negative and it looks like it's opposition partisanship, then I would ask you to remember the nature of what we do. The auditor's reports are critical in some areas, and it's our job, collectively, putting our partisan hats aside, to get at the core of the issues and make recommendations to make Parliament work.

So I am going to defend the chair, because this is exactly the culture that was here when I arrived under Mr. Williams, who was the Conservative member. Much of the way in which we conduct ourselves is as a result of the culture that he developed--much, I would add, to the betterment of Parliament.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay.

I'm going to continue.

I've made the point, Mr. Baker, that this is a department in considerable difficulty, in my opinion. But there's another point I want to get at.

I read your performance reports. I have for the past two years. What really bothers me, as a member of Parliament, is that the fundamental role of every member of Parliament, government and opposition, is to hold the government to account. And when I read this, I find nothing to identify the challenges the government has. There's nothing about the recommendations previously made by the Auditor General. There's nothing that would elaborate on the current recommendations. It's 38 pages of self... When you read this report--and I did read it--you read that everything is very positive in this department; it's a great department; you're doing a tremendous job; you have no challenges; you have no risks; it couldn't be better.

Now, this goes not only to your department but to every department: I am so frustrated at these performance reports that are really not serving the purpose for which they're intended, and that's as a means of reporting to Parliament. With all due respect--and please, you've only been there three weeks, and you have an excellent recommendation--this process of the performance reports I find disturbing.

Have you read this report? I know that you've only been there three weeks, so perhaps I'm being a little unfair to you, but my submission to you, and I'll ask for your comment, is that this does not reflect the reality of the department. Do you agree with that?

I also want to get a comment from the auditor on that point.

[William Baker]

Mr. Chair, first of all, it's been six weeks--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I apologize for that.

[William Baker]

--so I'm fully accountable for my actions here.

I have read it recently, in the context, frankly, of my orientation into the department.

I take your point. We will be informed by the Auditor General's report, the views of the public accounts committee, and so on in preparing future iterations of this. All I can say is that we will endeavour to make sure that this reflects more accurately, perhaps, what the current status of development is in the area of emergency management.

To go back to your first point, we agree with the Auditor General, as does the minister, that Public Safety Canada has a ways to go in demonstrating the leadership we need to exercise. I must point out that when you see, recommendation by recommendation, “unsatisfactory”, that does not mean that nothing is being done. It means that in the judgment of the Auditor General, or the public accounts committee, not enough has been done to get us over the line to be considered satisfactory.

I think we need to recognize that a lot of work has taken place. Is it enough? Absolutely not. We are here today with an action plan and an absolute commitment to move this forward and be able to deliver more positive results in the future.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Do you have any comment on the point I made about the performance report, Madam Auditor?

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, I would just add that certainly in all the audits we have done on performance reports per se we have found generally that there has been an issue with balance, that departments are not presenting sufficiently the risks and the challenges they're facing or some of the things that may have gone wrong. It tends to be rather more self-congratulatory.

I would point out for the committee that one performance report that has indicated difficulties in the past and less than satisfactory performance has been the report of the Canada Revenue Agency, where Mr. Baker was previously the commissioner. Perhaps we could have hope that Public Safety Canada's performance report will be more balanced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I did make that point, Madam Auditor, that Mr. Baker comes to the committee with an excellent reputation.

Second round, Mr. Lee, five minutes.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I just want to make sure the chair knows he has the support of members on this side of the table. And I can assure members opposite, by my recollection, that our chair is no more aggravating to government members than was Leonard Hopkins in the 1980s and John Williams. Leonard Hopkins was a Liberal in opposition and a great MP, as was John Williams in opposition, as a Reformer and as a Conservative.

In any event, there goes a minute of my time, in support of the chair.

One of the items identified by the Auditor General was the absence of developed departmental emergency plans. I know that Public Safety Canada, of course, isn't responsible for the development of those, but it does collaborate in the development, and I think the Auditor General reported there was zero. I'm just wondering if, in your collaborating leadership, you've been able to develop any departmental emergency management plans to date.

[William Baker]

I think I can speak with pretty good assurance that all departments and agencies have disaster recovery plans in place, business continuity plans. As I indicated in my opening remarks, one of the roles of Public Safety Canada--and it's a role we are exercising to a greater extent than before--is reviewing those plans. We've gone through two rounds of review, and each one, I'm pleased to say, resulted in improvements. Not that many days ago we took stock, and there was still a handful of departments or agencies where the plans were not quite up to par, and I understand just in the last number of days they've made the necessary improvements to get us there.

We are exercising the role that is envisioned for Public Safety Canada to go back to departments and agencies and review those plans. We're also giving them self-assessment tools, because they want to know how they're going to be assessed. We're certainly not shy in terms of providing the feedback, and I'm certainly not shy, as the deputy minister, in bringing it to the attention of any of my colleagues if their plans require improvement. But their response, I think, has been quite encouraging, in terms of the quality of the plans they are preparing.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Do you ever finish? Do you ever sign off on a departmental emergency management plan? Do you ever get to the point where I was when I was in grade one, and the teacher put a gold star on the chart, or a red star, that this is a good student and he gets a red star? Or a badge in Boy Scouts. Do you ever get to that stage?

[William Baker]

Not stars.

We do provide assessment. I think we have to be careful that Public Safety Canada is not the one to determine that a department has or has not completely met the grade, because at the end of the day, individual departments and their ministers are responsible for their business continuity plans. So we provide feedback in terms of pointing out weaknesses, but ultimately they have to follow through. They are following through--

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

With respect, Parliament is relying on you to be the experts. Surely, if it's leadership, you have to be able to tell them they're up to par or they're not. I appreciate that you have an ongoing exercise of reviewing their plans.

If you feel it's fine, I wouldn't mind if the next time the Auditor General did her tour, you could show her that you have a chart that shows above the line and below the line. I'm sure she'd look at that.

Can I ask you another question? Because of perhaps our lack of awareness of the organic nature of these plans and protocols, because there aren't a lot of them—I haven't seen one, and the Auditor General may still be looking for some--for purposes of advising or notifying, is there any protocol in existence between the Government of Canada and all its departments or its partner agencies across the country in relation to, for example, a weather event or an earthquake event or a terrorism threat?

What triggers or what arrangements exist to allow the federal government, with all of its resources, to notify an agency that there's a problem in the pipeline, whether it's the weather, or the earthquake about to happen or a terrorism threat? Can you tell me that?

[William Baker]

Sure. I can give a brief response. In that particular case, we have what's called the government operations centre. That is an operational component of Public Safety Canada.

This government operations centre receives input from any number of sources, whether meteorological monitoring stations or intelligence sources, with respect to events that are occurring, and it produces reports with respect to any developments. There's a gradation, depending upon the severity of what is occurring.

Actually, I would point out that in her report the Auditor General acknowledged that that function on the part of Public Safety Canada was making some meaningful progress. We still have a ways to go. It's a relatively new centre, and we're getting all of the linkages in place, but I'm encouraged again that we have support to do that. It is the institution that we will be relying on to monitor events surrounding all major events in the country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Lee.

Mr. Young, you have five minutes.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Baker, I want to thank you for assuring the committee that there is a draft plan in place that is a fulsome and robust plan. It's my impression that if the draft plan's approved, in fact the plan we have right now might end up being the final plan anyway, although it still doesn't have that seal of approval.

I think it's important to point out that this is the plan that worked the only time it's ever been needed, which was with the Manitoba floods. I think it's important on this committee not to be inflammatory.

I also recognize in hearing your testimony today what a massive challenge it is. You also talked about the changing nature of it. I also understand that the departments can't be compelled, that it's a cooperative exercise as well.

How many parties have to be at the table to get this plan approved? Is it all the provinces and the territories, or is it the departments? How big an operation is that stage?

[William Baker]

There are really plans at different stages. We have plans at the federal level, federal emergency response plans and so on, and systems to guide the response of federal institutions moving forward. In that particular case, our leadership is pretty secure in that regard. We exercise it through reporting, through committees at different levels, deputy-level committees, assistant-deputy-minister-level committees, which Monsieur Lavoie chairs, for instance.

With the provinces, of course, you don't have the stick of—