Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 17th, 2011

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wiersema, you indicated that you have a strong desire to stay on after November 31. I detected that.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I detected that.

Given that Parliament, both the House and Senate, has to review this and appoint someone accordingly before that date and that we have not yet had an official nominee, I'd welcome you back in December to the committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I'd like to move to Mr. Matthews and Mr. Ralston. I want to talk a bit about the challenge function. You both talked a little in terms of examples, giving specific examples of how the system works, and you talked about the process.

One recent example that strikes me is the G-8 legacy fund. What should we as a committee know? Obviously things did not happen the way they were supposed to, and those who were in a position--I think almost a statutory authority position—to

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to interject on a point of order.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

All right, quickly.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

You know why I'm interjecting? We have had this discussion previously. This session was not intended to become highly political and partisan; it was meant to be simply an information session.

I would like to ask my colleague to refrain from asking those questions. He'll have his opportunity at a later date.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I take your point. It's fine for comparison; it's fine for an example. But we're not getting into the meat of the issue. That's why I was listening, Mr. Saxton.

You're okay so far, but please bear in mind the parameters.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I can understand why the government would be concerned about this line of questioning, but--

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Indeed, in terms of fairness.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

—in that process you described, who specifically attests to this as actually meeting the requirements, that the expenditures being asked for Parliament's approval are actually being properly described?

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

There's a point of order.

I'm not hearing anything, Daryl. It doesn't—

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

The invitation to these witnesses today was clear: we wanted a general briefing on the operations of their departments.

There will be plenty of opportunity for each and any person and/or member of this committee to discuss the issues of concern that Mr. Byrne is raising. As you know, the government has no objection to that. As a matter of fact, we look forward to that.

But I think there is a time and a place, Chair, and I think we're wasting our guests' time right now. We're asking for a briefing on how they operate their department and how we operate with them.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I've heard the point. Thank you.

You're right on the line, Mr. Byrne. Please act accordingly.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Is someone assigned a specific function within the Federal Accountability Act to ensure that Parliament is being given specific and correct information? I thought there was a chief financial officer who was supposed to report and be able to provide an attestation that things were on the up and up. Is that correct or am I misconstruing something? I don't mean to be offensive, or anything like that.

[James Ralston]

In terms of the general process for CFO attestation, which is what you referred to, there are a number of official documents wherein financial information would be contained. A prime example, as Bill mentioned, would be a Treasury Board submission, for example. So if something had been included in a budget at some point in time, and approval had been given for a particular new initiative, Treasury Board would then do its due diligence around a specific ask for a specific amount to get that under way.

Before the Treasury Board Secretariat would consider that request, they would require a submission in good form. Part of that good form would be the chief financial officer of the organization saying that they were essentially satisfied that the numbers or details supporting whatever was being asked for were well supported. There would have been a certain amount of challenge done internally before it were passed over to the Treasury Board Secretariat, who might then do an additional challenge function.

So when you refer to CFO attestation, that's what it's about. It's typically transactional. It typically signals to the Treasury Board Secretariat that we, the department, are now satisfied that they have the full information they need to process the submission and that we pass it over to them.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

That's good. Thanks very much.

That's helpful because it allows us as a committee to be able to say that, maybe, the CFO would be someone who we might want to ask to appear before the committee. So thank you very kindly.

I want to talk to Mr. Wiersema about the importance of this committee. You place a lot of value in this committee. Every time you've appeared, every time you have spoken in public, you always talk about the importance of your relationship with Parliament, in particular the PACP. Convince me that this relationship is important. More importantly, convince Canadians. What value does the PACP offer in terms of transparency and accountability?

[John Wiersema]

Mr. Chairman, at a strictly legal and technical level, we present our reports to the Speaker of the House of Commons, who tables them in the House of Commons, and those reports are referred to this committee by standing order. So right off the bat, this committee is our key point of interface with Parliament. As an agent of Parliament, we're hear to serve parliamentarians and we see this committee as the key point of interface for our work on behalf of all of Parliament.

The second reason this committee is so important to the work of the Office of the Auditor General is that it brings life to the work of the office by way of its hearings on our individual audit reports. This committee will select a sample of our reports to have hearings on and will call the Office of the Auditor General to explain our findings. One of the unique features of this committee's work that we find very effective is that at the same time, at the same hearing, it will call departmental officials to explain their position opposite the findings of the Office of the Auditor General. And this committee in the recent past has also been very effective in asking departments to prepare action plans. It asks them whether they agree with the Auditor General's findings recommendations, yes or no, and sometimes departments disagree. And that's okay. But if you do agree, what is your action plan for correcting those deficiencies?

I indicated that the key measure of our performance is the extent to which our findings, our recommendations, are actually implemented. It's through this committee that we get action plans and a basis for follow up and accountability.

It's also through this committee that we can communicate to all parliamentarians and Canadians about the work of the Office of the Auditor General or our audit findings. This committee will prepare its own reports to the House of Commons after a hearing, saying: we listened to the Auditor General and the department, and here's our take on what's happening and here's our recommendations to the government on the issues that were our subject.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay, I'm going to call it there.

Thanks very much.

Mr. Aspin, you have the floor.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

As a new member, I would like to thank each and every one of you for the presentations and PowerPoints and descriptions you provided. It's a very complex operation and it's becoming clearer to me, so thank you very much for that.

This is a question from my own perspective as a new member.

To the secretary, Madam d'Auray, could you highlight for the committee how the estimates have improved over the last, say, four or five years? And in your opinion do they provide the members of Parliament with more information today then they did, say, four or five years ago?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start, and then I'll ask my colleague Bill Matthews to give more details.

I would say that the estimates have provided more information to support Parliament when its voting on supply. We have seen the presentation of horizontal activities, for example, so we've been able to group together some of the major initiatives and give some description of what they are. We've been able to report on or provide an indication of what some of the government's priorities are.

So we've added more contextual information, if I can say, in the estimates to support parliamentarians in their review of plans, but also in their voting of supply.

I don't know, Bill, if you wanted to add anything.

[Bill Matthews]

The one thing I would add is that if you look at the main estimates, we've started doing a bit of narrative comparing the main estimates for a given department in one year versus the next. So if you do see that the resources of a department have changed one year over the next, you will see a brief explanation as to why that might be to help committee members understand.

[Jay Aspin, Conservative, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Okay, thank you.

I have another question for the secretary with respect to the election.

Because of the election this year, Governor General's special warrants were required to allow the government to continue to operate during the election.

Could you highlight for the committee how that affected the normal supply process?

[Michelle d'Auray]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The supply process was indeed interrupted by the election. That's not a comment on the election, but just what happened as a result of prorogation of Parliament. As a result, we either had to deplete existing votes or seek authority from the Governor General to access the consolidated revenue fund on the basis of an obligation on the government's part to make an expenditure, and an attestation on the minister's part that the expenditure was required. As my colleague Bill confirmed, within 15 days of Parliament's resumption, we also reported on the use and expenditure of Governor General's special warrants.

So, while the supply period was interrupted, the government was able to continue to function. That is the strength of our system. We can continue to operate and then report back to Parliament, once Parliament is back in session, on the use of funds to meet the government's obligations.