Public Accounts Committee on March 8th, 2011

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

This is a clean report, and you tell us, Mr. Wiersema, it can be relied upon. So I immediately went to a section that is very important to me: volume 3, section 2.21, and here's the title: “Losses of Public Money Due To An Offence, Illegal Act Or Accident--Occurrence”. There are items under there that you're familiar with: “Loss of meal ticket sales”, $386. There is “Loss of public funds” in one of the columns, $420. There's one that says “Theft of cashier float”, $40. Then there's one amount that stands out--it's just massive in comparison to the others--which is $6,754,000 and change, which is public money that was lost in the sponsorship scandal.

What I'd like to find out first is this. The number that comes to mind in the media was $40 million that was stolen in the sponsorship scandal, so why is that not referenced, and why is it only just under $7 million there?

[John Wiersema]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. It gives me an opportunity to clarify once again.

The Auditor General's opinion and observations on the Public Accounts of Canada relate to the summary financial statements of the Government of Canada. We did not audit all three volumes of this, Mr. Chairman. The only thing we audited is what's included in section 2 of volume 1. I believe that's made very clear with the Auditor General's report. We've also looked at section 1 of volume 1. The audit work to audit all three volumes of the Public Accounts would be prohibitively expensive and I'm not sure necessarily of value to Parliament.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Could you shed any light on that issue, though?

[John Wiersema]

The short answer, Mr. Chairman, is no.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

You can't. Do you have no insight into it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Matthews.

[Bill Matthews]

Thank you, Chair.

The disclosure is in a couple of parts. The first section the member is referring to is the loss occurring or discovery in the current fiscal year, so 2009-10. If you actually flip a little further, Mr. Chair, to 2.44, you'll see an update of cases reported in previous years, because what happens is there are estimates made in terms of the amounts that are recoverable, and those estimates are best estimates, but history tends to be a little bit different. So there's an update here on what actually has happened in terms of our estimates of recovery. So to get the complete history here, you have to go to the further section, which is an update on losses reported in previous years.

Mr. Chair, if you're looking for information specific to sponsorship, as I mentioned earlier, I believe Public Works and Government Services Canada continues to maintain something on their website that actually gives excellent disclosure on the history of these cases.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

Since the Liberal Party has not declared bankruptcy yet, like the other organizations you're going after, do you have any insight on how the government might go after it to collect some of this money back from the Liberal Party? You have an advisory role. Is that correct?

[Bill Matthews]

No. We assist departments in terms of their disclosure.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Can you give the committee any insight into how to do that?

[Bill Matthews]

Mr. Chair, I don't think it's appropriate for me to answer that question.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Ralston?

[James Ralston]

No.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Wiersema, as auditor...?

[John Wiersema]

No, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Let me compliment the witnesses on making a distinction between a political question and a technical question.

Mr. Young, you've got another minute and a half to go ahead with political questions.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you.

On a very important issue that is very often misunderstood—in fact, a lot of members of Parliament don't understand this. It's a phenomenon that is very important, and the answer is very important. That is, how is it possible that corporate taxes have been going down every, year and continue to go down—they will go down next year—and yet from the previous year, the taxes collected from corporate taxes went up 3%?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

You look a little skeptical there, Mr. Ralston. I think you should answer the question.

[James Ralston]

No, I'm just wondering if perhaps it's not a question that's better addressed to the Department of Finance.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Wiersema, do you have any comment?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I hope you do. You're the guy who keeps those books.

Mr. Robidoux.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I was asking Mr. Wiersema, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

I think he asked if he could go over to Mr. Robidoux.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Are you going to decide now who answers the questions, or are we allowed to direct questions, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joe Volpe]

You can use your time if you like, but you've got another 10 seconds to go.