Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Sheila Fraser]

That's right. Government will argue it was not a sole source because of the ACAN, so that's where the disagreement is.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

The next question I have changes topics, and it is with respect to the economic action plan. In chapter 1, you indicate that:

The reports do not explain why information was provided for certain projects and not for others. Officials from Department of Finance Canada told us that the examples of project-level jobs described in the quarterly reports were for illustrative purposes only and were intended to complement the macroeconomic analysis. As a result, we found the reports presented an incomplete picture of project-level jobs created or maintained.

The government cites those reports often. Is it safe to assume, based on what you've said, that this is simply a marketing communication tool, and they're not substantive or accurate in any aspect that you would be able to measure?

[Sheila Fraser]

The difficulty is that the information collected is not necessarily reliable to be able to be aggregated to know the numbers of jobs that were created or maintained, and that's why government has had to go to these macroeconomic analyses. I think in their performance report, if they want to present cases of various projects and the number of jobs, it perhaps illustrates for Canadians what was done. But to get the overall assessment of the program, they cannot use that information. It is not sufficiently robust.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

It's simply a marketing communication tool, but it's not accurate or substantial by any stretch.

[Sheila Fraser]

It cannot be used to--

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

Validate....

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, it's not sufficient information.

[Navdeep Bains, Liberal, Mississauga—Brampton South, ON]

That's right. They keep on citing it, and I just wanted to make it clear that it's simply the case.

The other question I had was with respect to chapter 1 again. You noted that some projects started late, and it's not clear whether they'll be completed on time. Can you indicate from your analysis what caused those delays and if you have any timelines associated with that? Was that a reflection of the way the project was set up? Was that because of some ribbon-cutting ceremonies, or whatever the case may be? What were the reasons for the delays?

[Sheila Fraser]

I'll get Mr. Campbell to elaborate on that. I will just mention one case we mentioned in here, the aboriginal housing programs, where the approval process seemed to take a lot longer and they started later, but Mr. Campbell may have other examples.

[Ronnie Campbell]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the economic action plan, the need for speed required that the government rely on assumptions at the beginning, so some of those assumptions were around the fact that they would approve projects that were ready to go. So they relied on attestations from the proponents. One of the assumptions would be that this information would be accurate, and the other assumption related to that would be that if something started on time, it would finish on time. What we've noted, as the member raises, is that some of the projects are running late. During the audit, the government was certainly aware of this and was monitoring those. The final impact is yet to be known, whether or not those will miss the deadline. We don't know that. We'll see in our next audit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

We'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much. It's great to see you back here again.

I must say, back home when I talk about being on the public accounts committee, the fact that I get an opportunity to speak to you becomes the most significant part.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

I don't mean to say anything about my colleagues or the chair, but certainly you've done great work in your office.

I would like to talk about chapter 9, and then if we have time perhaps go back to some issues out of chapter 2 and perhaps chapter 3.

It's extremely important to Canadian livestock producers, because of the highly contagious nature of some of these diseases and the risks we have to all producers in Canada.... The audit clearly shows that under the government's leadership, CFIA has planned for and responded to and improved their management of animal disease situations. I'm sure that agriculture producers, as well as Canadian consumers, will be pleased the audit recognizes that CFIA is prepared, whenever the next animal disease issue occurs, and that the government will continue to give CFIA the resources it needs to safeguard Canada's agriculture and food industry.

I note here that you found in the audit that the agency has assessed animal disease risk and invested considerable efforts in developing emergency preparedness and response strategies, including an overall emergency response plan, and disease-specific plans for avian influenza and foot and mouth disease.

Would you say CFIA's emergency preparedness and response strategies are in line with what's needed when dealing with animal diseases?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, I would say that the report was a fairly positive one overall. They went through the risk assessment and identified those two diseases as being of the highest risk, so they focused on developing the plans for them.

What we indicate in the report--and they recognize this themselves--is that some of the plans for other diseases are not complete and need to be updated. They need to get on with that.

They are doing a good job of monitoring and trying to be aware of the risks, but they really do need to complete those plans for other diseases.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

As well, you spoke of the influenza outbreaks in 2007 and 2009.

Your audit was completed April 30, 2010. I'm wondering when your audit began, and if it happened to be ongoing during the management of these outbreaks.

[Sheila Fraser]

We did look at how the agency was managing the outbreaks. In the most recent ones, we found they were complying with their policies and procedures.

They seemed to be managing it well, contrary to what happened previously where they received a lot of criticism. They did their ”lessons learned” exercise from that. As well, they have done more on the manuals, the procedures, the testing and preparing for an emergency.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Going back to chapter 2, the management and control of small entities, I'm curious if you could expand somewhat on what you saw there.

You looked at the Canadian Forces Housing Agency, the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency, and the Pension Appeals Board. Could you perhaps give some of the highlights of the issues you saw?

[Sheila Fraser]

Some of the members on the committee may recall that a few years ago there were a number of issues being raised about management practices in smaller agencies; they weren't maybe getting the level of attention or oversight that was required and there were some not very good things happening.

We recognized ourselves that we were paying a lot of attention to the larger departments and not these smaller agencies. In 2007, we started a program of picking a sample of them every two to three years and looking at some of their basic management practices over travel, hospitality, human resource management, contracting--basic financial and human resource management.

In past audits of some of these smaller agencies, we have raised issues around human resource management, for instance, or some of the financial management practices.

In this particular case, I am very pleased to say that with the three we looked at--the Canadian Forces Housing Agency, the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency, and the Pension Appeals Board--there were no significant issues raised. We do recommend that there be better documentation in some of their performance appraisals, but overall, they had the controls in place that we would expect and they were respecting the policies of the Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

I am going to go to Madam Faille for a few minutes.

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

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Ms. Fraser one question.

Ms. Fraser, if you do not have enough time to answer, you can do so in writing.

My question pertains to chapter 1 specifically, which deals with infrastructure. Was the department able to properly assess the ability to undertake these projects during the identified time period? We know that there was a deadline. This is not the first time that we have raised alarm bells with the department and that we have drawn to its attention problems pertaining to projects that municipalities have begun or wish to begin but will be unable to complete before the deadline.

I have other questions. I wanted to know whether or not the departments considered the number of projects that were going to be undertaken at the same time and in the same region. Did they verify the availability of resources, assess whether or not there were adequate resources available in the area? If so, why did they ignore signals from the FQM and the UMQ, which are the primary organizations and associations representing municipalities in Quebec? I would also like to know whether the departments are working now, today, on an initiative to extend the deadline.

[Sheila Fraser]

As my colleague said, we noted in the report that there appears to be a few projects that are running late. We will be reviewing this matter specifically during the second audit. As Mr. Campbell indicated, these were projects presented by governments, either the provinces or the territories, to the federal government with assurances that they would be completed on time. That was one of the eligibility criteria.

I think that, during the second step, we are going to review how such assurances were given—if we are able to verify this, perhaps, through our provincial colleagues—and we will also ascertain what measures could be taken. We know, from the newspapers, that there may be some discussions underway to extend the deadlines for a few projects. We will be in a better position to answer—

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

When you drafted your recommendation, during the course of your exchanges with the department, did the letter give you any indication that the deadline may be extended?

[Sheila Fraser]

The minister did not do so at the time we completed this audit, no.

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

When was the audit completed?