Public Accounts Committee on June 3rd, 2010

[Sheila Fraser]

Chair, we would look to see what the organizations have done in terms of evaluating the benefits. We would not do an evaluation ourselves, but we would certainly look to see what type of information is being collected.

As you're pointing out and as members are pointing out, I think it is very important that the legislatures and Canadians understand the benefits that come from these systems.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dreeshen.

That concludes the second round.

You have a very brief question, Mr. Young.

I want to move on, because there's another meeting.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I understand. Thank you.

I want to ask Madam Dodds this. You know there's a rich potential in this information with regard to prescription drug safety. Do you have any process or do you have any plans to access that information to improve prescription drug safety and act on it?

[Dr. Karen Dodds]

Yes, as Mr. Alvarez said, Infoway, Health Canada, and a number of the provinces are working very closely with the Canadian Institute for Health Information on the very responsible ways of using the information to benefit the health system writ large, instead of the individual doctor and the individual patient.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You haven't started yet.

[Dr. Karen Dodds]

Yes.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You have started.

[Dr. Karen Dodds]

Yes, we've started investigating the ways that we can do it. Privacy is one of the key issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

That ends the questions, colleagues.

I have a couple of minor items of business I want to attend to.

But before we leave, on behalf of all members of the committee, I want to thank the witnesses here today.

Mrs. Fraser, do you have any closing comments?

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the committee for their interest in these audit reports.

As we've mentioned, my provincial colleagues and I certainly think this is a major initiative across the country that obviously involves significant sums of money, but there are great potential benefits. We would certainly encourage this committee and perhaps your provincial counterparts as well to continue to follow this.

We've encouraged Infoway to give more comprehensive information. I would suspect, at some point in the future, we will be going back to see what has been accomplished on this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Ms. Fraser.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Give me 10 seconds. You can rule me out if you want.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ten seconds you will have, Mr. Christopherson.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I just wondered, is there any way we can influence the public accounts national conference that's coming up so that they put this on their agenda? It's a great opportunity for us to do the follow-up that's been suggested.

I'll just leave it with you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We can bring that up, Mr. Christopherson. I believe the agenda is set, but I certainly think it's a good idea. We will bring that up.

Mr. Alvarez, do you have any closing comments?

[Richard Alvarez]

First, thank you for this opportunity. If I said it would be a real joy to come back, I may have been overstating the case—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Richard Alvarez]

—but I will obviously be delighted to come back.

I will leave you with this. I often get asked the question, because of its great importance to the transformation of records: why is it taking so long? My response is, why is it taking so long compared to what?

When you think about our banking systems today, it took 10 years, from when the first bank got its general ledger in, to get the rest of its branches online. It took an additional 10 years, meaning 20 years in total, for the first Interac transaction; and it took an additional 10 years before you or I could access our own bank account at home. When you think that it took 30 years, or 20 years at minimum, for the banks to do that and you think about their credits and debits, and you also think about the number and complexity of transactions in health care, it's going to take a long while. I believe that in the next 10 or so years, this country will make tremendous progress.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Alvarez.

Dr. Dodds, do you have any closing comments? Okay.

Again, on behalf of all members of the committee, I want to thank you very much. The witnesses are excused.

Before I adjourn, there are two items I want to deal with. The first item, colleagues, is the approval of the minutes of the steering committee. They've been circulated.

I just want to highlight three things. One, of course, is that we are scheduling a hearing for the peer review in September. Because it will be done via teleconference with the principals who are in Australia, it will be done outside normal hours, probably in the evening—but you will be given sufficient notice.

The second item is that we are going to have hearings in the fall on the Auditor General's special report on the Canada Post Corporation and the Canada Science and Technology Museum Corporation.

Thirdly, the committee has authorized our budget to be presented to the Liaison Committee for our attendance at the annual meeting of the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees, which is being held in Quebec City in August of this year.

So people have read those minutes. The chair would entertain a motion.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I so move.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

The second item is Madame Faille's motion. I'll let her speak to it briefly, but I understand she is going to amend the last paragraph, where it says “estimates of government spending on information technology” and insert the words “of the following agencies”. There will be 15 agencies and departments mentioned. Those have been circulated. In my view, it's not a substantive amendment. It actually restricts the motion. I will allow the amendment.

Did I capture your amendment correctly, Madame Faille?

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

In fact, I want to say that this was a joint effort. It was done after my meeting yesterday with Mr. Kramp and the discussions we had with Mr. Lee. We emphasized the fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer could do it within the existing resources. I amended the motion so that there would be no further requests for supplementary budgets, etc. I brought this amendment to satisfy my colleagues around the table.

Mr. Kramp also mentioned restricting the study to targeted departments. In an arbitrary way, I kept the departments that my colleagues and myself had reviewed during the session. Fifteen departments appeared before the committee. The Auditor General had identified within these departments some problems relative to information technology.

In this respect, I limited my work to these departments, simply so that everyone could have a point of reference, so that the department could be viewed in its entirety. This is why the motion was amended. This was, in fact, discussed previously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Madame Faille.

Madame Faille has moved her motion with the amendments included, so it does not require a vote on the amendments.

Mr. Kramp.

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

Mr. Chair, I'd just like to speak for a moment. I agree, after having a conversation with Madame Faille, and I certainly respect her diligence. She's thorough. I have no difficulty with that. Moving forward with the principle of what she's asking, I certainly don't have any difficulty with that.

My first concern was, where do we go from here? It's huge. There are 112 different departments and agencies. To suggest that we need to access thousands and thousands and thousands...the budget officer is going to be there for years. So let's define this.

I don't really know where Madame Faille is going with this. If we had a sense of direction, I would have no difficulty, but I just don't want to be going like a scattergun and asking the budget officer to deal with a grand, grand problem, particularly in light of two or three observations I might make.