It was completed in April.
Evidence of meeting #29 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fraser.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #29 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was fraser.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It was completed in April.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
It was completed in April 2010? Thank you.
Do I still have any time remaining, Mr. Chair?
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
In the section of the report which deals with the management of conflicts of interest, I would simply like to underscore the progress achieved in various departments. One flagrant example jumped out at me: I am referring to point 4.44 of your report, where it states that departments, such as Canadian Heritage, have drawn up a guide to advise government employees of what they are to do when someone offers them special tickets for cultural and sports events.
Did the department, when it provided the guide, list the weaknesses of the measures that have been implemented? Currently, there does not appear to have been a reduction in the number of tickets purchased for Ottawa Senators games and shows at the National Arts Centre, so the rules are still being side-stepped despite the guide. Have the departments informed you of any new schemes or strategies to get around these rules?
12:35 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Mr. Chair, the purpose of our audit was really to establish which mechanisms had been set up by the departments in order to make public employees aware of the situation, and not to investigate situations. I cannot really answer those statements; perhaps this is a question that should be put to the government.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
So the question should be put to the department. Fine.
I have another question about the section in the report that deals with employees working for the Parliamentary Precinct Branch. I obviously have questions for Public Works and Government Services Canada: certain departmental representatives testified here and never informed us about any conflicts of interest regarding the work being undertaken in the Parliamentary Precinct.
In your report, you alluded to training provided in May and June. Could you tell us whether...?
12:35 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Could you give me the reference?
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
It is the government response to point 4.72, the response to your recommendation.
What was behind this training on Parliamentary Precinct projects given in May and June? Could you explain the incidents that necessitated this training on conflicts of interest associated with work done in the Parliamentary Precinct?
12:35 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It is really up to the department to respond, it is the department that should give you this answer.
12:35 p.m.
Bloc
Meili Faille Bloc Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC
All right, so you did not question them to find out exactly what conflict of interest had been identified?
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Thank you, Madam Faille.
Madam Fraser, if I might, I'd like to draw your attention back to the medium- to heavy-lift helicopter project. I refer specifically to page 20 of that chapter, and I do it for illustrative purposes. I like the play on words that you used in another report. There is one thing that concerns me, and it is your discussion with respect to this project and the process you outlined, a process on which at least one of the departments disagrees with your conclusions and interpretations.
We're always here to talk about openness, accountability, and transparency. I think you said, without using the exact words, that through the process, the departmental officials—and since there are three departments at play, maybe you could identify which one is most reflective of this—provided information for decision-makers that was incomplete and perhaps not totally accurate, thereby causing decision-makers to make a decision that led to an amendment to the contract in 2009. I believe you indicated as well that there was another contract amendment earlier this year, although it was not captured by your audit. I note that on page 20, even though you say that your audit began in 2006, you made reference to a decision to go into the medium- and heavy-lift helicopter contract the previous year. So this covers a five-year period.
We began by talking about and complimenting the bureaucracy, our functionaries, who have been doing a very good job. I think government members have drawn the attention to the fact that seven out of the ten audits are great, but you paint a disturbing picture of some of the officials in those departments with respect to this particular project.
I know you're going to give some really specific answers to Mr. Bachand and I believe to Mr. Shipley's questions, but do you not find that your observations with respect to the information provided, withheld, or adjusted by the departments on this project to be more than troubling?
12:40 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Chair, I prefer to stay with the word “troubling”. I think, obviously, the committee will want to ask department officials why this occurred, who will provide their explanation of this.
I would go back, as I mentioned earlier, to the whole way these acquisitions are done. The strategy the government uses is the lowest-price compliant one. So there is a set of requirements that is put out, people bid, and then the government says, okay, we'll take the lowest price. We really question if this is an appropriate strategy when you're dealing with complex equipment and there is a recognition that there will be modifications over time. I think we recognize in this that the military itself may not have known all the modifications that were to occur, but they did know there would be modifications.
I think it would be very useful if the committee discussed how these kinds of acquisitions should go ahead. Should there be a more incremental approach as the requirements become better defined and the information becomes more accurate? It's clear in both of these projects that over time the requirements change significantly, and the costs, of course, change according to that, and yet there's a decision made at the very beginning to spend x dollars, a fixed amount. You really have to ask if that is the appropriate way to be doing this and to recognize up front that there is much more uncertainty and risk involved in these things than buying a truck. I think that's what the government really has to reconsider, and that's one of our recommendations. The government really has to reconsider, I think, the approach they use to do these acquisitions.
12:40 p.m.
Conservative
Daryl Kramp Conservative Prince Edward—Hastings, ON
Mr. Chair, this is your second intervention. The first one was for four minutes. You're well over even the five that any of us are allotted here at this particular point. If this is going to be a regular occurrence.... We appreciate the experience of the chair and the opportunity to occasionally kick in and ask a question. I think that's fair, but at some particular point, there's a level of being reasonable.
I would just ask that you bear that in mind. If you wish to ask a question, then by all means, vacate the chair and go to a position on your respective party's side and ask that question.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
If you want to talk about procedures or the process of how we're going to conduct our meeting, we're going to go into business of the committee in a few moments, so we can take that up, okay? I don't have any problem with that.
Mr. Young.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
Mr. Chair, when this committee was first constituted, we spent the better part of, I guess, two hours setting protocols and rules for the committee, which divided up the time evenly between the three parties. In effect, what you've done today by asking questions—and I'm not saying you shouldn't ask questions. Certainly, chairs are empowered to ask questions for clarification, but what's happened today is you've effectively added a third Liberal person to this committee, which goes against procedures and protocols. As the person responsible for fairness on the committee, you've actually done something that is unfair for the committee.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
I will take your observation into consideration. As I said, we'll talk about it when we get into committee business, which we'll begin in a moment or two.
I note again that I don't think I asked a partisan question. I'm interested, like all of you, in getting the most value out of the Auditor General's presence, and in that regard, I think I do a service to everybody. I mean, we can discuss this in a moment.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
We're not going to do it while we've got the Auditor General here. We can go into committee business, but if you're challenging the chair, then go ahead.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Just a moment. We've been courteous enough with everybody. If you want to challenge the chair, that's fine.