Evidence of meeting #34 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 standards.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.
Let me go back to Monsieur Ricard, but just before I do, I thought in the introduction that Mr. Yeates used the word.... Perhaps I misunderstood.
I thought, Mr. Yeates, that you said that you disagreed with the Auditor General. Is that what you said?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
No. We said that we agreed with the Auditor General in terms of the recommendations that have been made.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Thank you.
Mr. Ricard, you identified 35 business lines—when I say you, I mean your department—and the department has responded with an action plan for four of those 35. We've had now about an hour and a half, and I think Mr. Yeates and Madame Deschênes have attempted to be as forthright as they possibly could.
Does it trouble you at all that the department would respond with four initiatives in an action plan when you identified 35 business lines on which you would have wanted some action?
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I guess I should start with clarifying one thing. Where we refer to the four, it's in fact four that are in place right now. The action plan is to address, I guess, the other 31, with some priority-setting. What we understand is that there is a plan in which there are a few phases. I guess they will prioritize where they can start and the challenges they face while setting those standards.
But just to clarify, the action plan is to address the other 31.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Because the committee responds to the Auditor General's view of the way that government operates and what it does, I'm wondering whether you're satisfied that an action plan by any department--in this case, it's CIC--says that “we will attempt to establish standards over the course of the next x number of years”.
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Well, for sure it will be a challenge, and I think the department realizes that, but at the same time they seem to be committed to that, and they've put in place some initiatives, like some committees and the service office there. What we sense is that there may be a momentum. But as an auditor, you will understand that we can't go any further than that, because we can't talk about how we will evolve.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
So what you're telling us is that you really won't be able to give this committee or Parliament an indication that any action with respect to service standards will actually have an impact on the service, until such time as those standards are established and they're presented with their analysis through your next audit.
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Well, I guess one doesn't necessarily preclude the other, but our message is that without indicators and measurements and reporting on it, you can't draw your performance story or your performance message in terms of how you're achieving those standards.
Without the standards, they won't be able to really measure the progress they're making. They may be taking some actions in parallel to that, but again, without the standards, they won't be able to measure the results.
November 23rd, 2010 / 12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
You're satisfied that the department is beginning to establish those standards?
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
As I said, we can't talk with them. We can't read the future, so--
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
We do a future follow-up audit at some point. As you know, we're doing follow-up audits. Clearly, then we will be able to draw the picture.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Mr. Yeates, on a couple of occasions you gave an indication. The first time I wrote it down as a direct quote--and I hope the Hansard will indicate the same--but then you paraphrased it. You said that you “only take in so many cases” per year, and then--and now I'm paraphrasing--on the line-by-line items. You've explained, and as I said, you've been fairly thorough in that. That has an impact on the efficiency of service that you provide, does it not?
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Yes, it does. That's why I indicated earlier, Chair, that when we convert our processing times across all of the lines--particularly the immigration business--and translate them into service standards, some of those are going to be quite lengthy because of the number of applications we have relative to the number of people we're able to admit each year.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
So it's only fair, then, to be judged only in those lines where you have already made that kind of decision. It would be unfair for us to read an OAG's report on the absence of standards when you already have some but you make decisions as you go along for that particular line.
Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Well, I think one of the things that's a challenge for us is that we call them “processing times”, but actually very little of that period of time is actually spent processing the case; most of it is waiting in the queue to be processed.
But we call it processing times because an individual wants to know how long it is going to take for their application to be dealt with. I think from a client's perspective, that's completely fair. From our perspective, the amount of work involved on actually processing the case may be, you know, a day's work...I don't know. But it is that kind of magnitude in terms of the difference.
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
To committee business. The Liberal Party has had a lot of questions today. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
As always, your views are taken into great consideration, especially with the weight with which they are presented. Thank you very much, Mr. Saxton.
Mr. Ricard, just before we go, the department has said before this committee that notwithstanding the moneys it takes in for processing fees, that money doesn't go to the department. It really goes to the consolidated general revenues. Did you take that into consideration when you made your observations about service delivery?
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
No. I don't know if you can clarify the link you make there or...
Conservative
Andrew Saxton Conservative North Vancouver, BC
Mr. Chairman, let's move on. This is ridiculous. You've taken up almost 10 minutes now. That's more than anybody else in this committee.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Thank you very much, Mr. Saxton. I'll just keep going.
Mr. Young, a point of order.
Conservative
Terence Young Conservative Oakville, ON
When this committee was constituted—you were not the chair—we took a full meeting to discuss how we would arrange questions so that the parties had relatively equal time. It's a democratic principle on which that's done, on how that was done, so that we would take up the amount of time in these meetings in proportion to how the voters sent us to this Parliament. As far as I know, it's the way every other committee works.
When Mr. Murphy was in the chair or when any other chair.... By the protocol of this House, they ask questions to clarify. That's the tradition in the protocol. I don't think anybody in this committee has any question about that, about you asking questions to clarify.
But since you became chair, in these meetings you end up taking time that would otherwise go to the other parties, and effectively maybe not doubling but increasing questions from Liberal members by maybe 50% or more. That's unfair. That's basically unfair. So we're just suggesting—we're asking—that you go back to the parliamentary protocol, ask questions to clarify, and not try to take up time that expands the time of the Liberal Party in this committee. We're just asking that on the basis of fairness and equity.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joe Volpe
Thank you, Mr. Young.
I thought the question that I asked was a clarification question. The committee members all want to know what the Auditor General has in mind when the Auditor General presents an item.
But for your clarification, I went back, because you raised this before, and I went through the number of words that the chair has used over the course of this calendar year, without objections. I noted that on at least two occasions, the number of words, because that's the way you measure these, exceeded 1,000, and in one case 1,500—sorry, three occasions over 1,000. No objections.
Only once did I go over 1,000 and there was an objection. So I'm going to ask Mr. Ricard to finish answering the question and then we'll go on.
Mr. Ricard.
Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
You're referring to the fact that the fees are going to the CRF, and no, we didn't spend much time on considering that in our audit work. Here's what our audit was about. Do they have standards? Do they monitor? Do they report? Do they learn from what they find in terms of the monitoring of their results?
So we didn't go there in terms of assessing the impact of where the fees are going.