Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Madame Faille.

Colleagues, that concludes the second round.

Mr. McRoberts, are there any closing comments you want to make on behalf of the Office of the Auditor General?

[Hugh McRoberts]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would note that the agency has agreed with the recommendations we have made. They have indicated they are taking action to address them. We are encouraged by that, and we are looking forward to coming back and seeing the progress they have made.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. McRoberts and Mr. Stock.

Do you have any closing comments, Mr. Rigby?

[Stephen Rigby]

Only to say, Chair, that we have formulated what I hope is an effective action plan. Mr. Christopherson's comments are very well taken. There are a number of chronic issues here, which I take very seriously. It is my hope that a number of the initiatives we have under way will begin to break the chronic nature of some of these issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for your appearance today. Dealing with an agency, as you said, with 97 million crossings, and I think it's $1.5 billion worth of trade every day, certainly makes for many challenges when you go to work in the morning. You perform a very important and challenging role for all Canadians, and we want to thank you for that.

Colleagues, I want to make a couple of announcements.

Do you have something, Mr. Christopherson?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

If I may, number one, I want to thank you, Mr. Rigby, for your demeanour and your answers. I wish you the best of luck. We need you to do well.

And Mr. McRoberts, do you have any idea when a follow-up audit may take place?

[Hugh McRoberts]

Right now, I don't. We have planned to schedule follow-up work, but my guess is that probably we would want to allow at least two to three years for Mr. Rigby to get things done and in place. That just gives you a concept of the timeframe. We'll put that in our plans.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I appreciate that.

Chair, that seems a little long, given some of the files we've talked about here. I wonder if there isn't something midway that we could receive from Mr. Rigby. I say that without having a whole lot of specifics in front of me. I could go through them if you wish.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We can put it in our report, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Maybe the clerk would be good enough to make a note of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. I have a couple of points of information before I adjourn the meeting.

I want to bring to everyone's attention that our next meeting is Thursday afternoon. It's in Room 237. I think a few people were confused as to the location of this meeting. They do move us around, so you have to check your notice. In fact sometimes we may be in the building on Sparks Street.

So it's back in Room 237 on Thursday afternoon, and the meeting is in camera. We're going to deal with two reports. Those reports have been prepared by the analyst. They have been translated in both official languages, and they're being circulated to all members electronically, either later today or first thing tomorrow morning. You'll have them by tomorrow morning.

I urge everyone to come on Thursday. For the benefit of the new members, we go paragraph by paragraph. I'd urge everyone to read them and ask yourself whether that reflects the mood and decisions of this committee.

Those are the items on the agenda for Thursday afternoon. We may try to do another report, depending on how we get along, but that will be our first effort with respect to reports.

If there is nothing else, I will adjourn the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned.