Public Accounts Committee on May 21st, 2013

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Great. Thank you.

Time has expired, and that concludes the rotation.

If I might, Mr. Ferguson, there are two issues I'd like to follow up on, two macro issues you raised that affect this committee.

The first was that in your report you noted—I believe Mr. Hayes questioned you around the same line—the percentage of your reports that we actually held hearings on. To be fair, there was an election in that time, but I note that 2010-11 also captured a bit of an election period. To be fair to the committee, the F-35 was like a black hole of time and just sucked up everything.

Having said that, I have to say to the committee that I agree with Mr. Hayes that we need to up our game. I just want to say that losing the steering committee as a structural element of our work has meant that we do all that work as a committee, and except for a very small fraction it's always done in camera. In my view, we are spending way too much time in camera fighting about details over meetings that could be thrashed out at a steering committee meeting. I urge the committee to reconsider bringing back the steering committee.

I agree with you that if you're doing these audits, that's half the battle. The other half, though, is the public hearing, because it's the public pressure, at the end of the day, that is the real whip hand here.

This committee has no power to do things unilaterally and make things happen. We're not a committee of power. But we are a committee of light, and the ability to give light and attention to your reports is, arguably, the most important thing we do.

Collectively, I hope we embrace that we all have a responsibility to get those numbers up, to be spending less time in camera and more time at public hearings, holding government to account and going through these audit reports that taxpayers have paid so much money to have developed.

There's another thing that troubles me. You mentioned the environmental and sustainable development commissioner's reports, that there were eight last year and no hearings. I think that's problematic for all of us as parliamentarians, or at least it should be, given the fact that there's really nothing more important right now facing the future of our planet than the issue of the environment and Canada's role.

I would ask you, Mr. Ferguson, if you have any suggestions. Obviously, it's our domain to decide as parliamentarians, but your advice would be helpful. Do you think this committee should take ownership of a percentage of them, which would be something new, something we've never done before? Do you think the environment committee should give assurances to the House that they're going to be holding some kind of hearings? Should there be joint hearings? This troubles me that there were eight audits on a file this important from the environmental commissioner and there were no public hearings.

Your thoughts, sir, on how to fix it.

[Michael Ferguson]

First of all, Mr. Chair, I think for clarification, there were eight with no hearings in the year of reporting. I believe one of those eight later on, after this year, did get a hearing. But it's still only one out of eight. That's just for clarification.

One thing I plan to do in the future is as we do with special examinations. For example, we do special exams of crown corporations, and then we put together a summary chapter of our special exams for this committee. The committee can then decide whether to have hearings on any of those.

I want to do the same thing for the reports of the commissioner: the commissioner releases his or her reports; we put together a summary, just as we do with special exams; we put it in front of this committee; and then the committee decides whether any of those are of interest.

I think some of the reports the commissioner puts out do have sort of financial aspects to them as well. Some of them can very much fit within the public accounts world as well. I think it's worth this committee considering at least some of them, but I think the environment committee also needs to be engaged with all of the reports of the commission.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I leave this with you just as a suggestion, sir. If you're willing to put some of those thoughts down on a piece of correspondence to the committee, just your thoughts and ideas, it would give us a focal point. What I don't want to happen is that a year from now we sit here and go, “Holy smokes, we wasted another year and there were no more hearings.” And if we don't take action and do something, then that's exactly where we'll be.

So I would just leave that with you. Perhaps you'd be interested in generating a memo to the committee for us to consider.

In terms of information requests coming out of the committee, I detected only one.

That came from you, Madame Blanchette-Lamothe. It was just a quick exchange between yourself and the Auditor General. It had to do with the 23 audits versus 30.

At some point, Mr. Ferguson, you said that you didn't have the figures in front of you, which we all understood, and Madame did too.

I believe, Madame—I don't have the instant Hansard—you then asked Mr. Ferguson if he would be able to get us those numbers.

Mr. Ferguson, there was a commitment that you could.

Is that an easy deliverable for you to this committee, sir?

[Michael Ferguson]

I think it is. It's making sure I know where the 30 and the 23 come from; once I know where those two numbers are located, then I can explain the difference.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Okay. You can go by the blues for the detail of the question and to catch it all, but it sounds to me like that's going to come.

Is everybody okay with that?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Obviously, this is a discussion that we had in the subcommittee, and something that we haven't even resolved yet in the committee as a whole, which we need to discuss at the next meeting.

I think the practice that you're taking right now is not known to everybody at this table—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I don't have a practice. Because the committee, at the end of it, was no further ahead, one of the committee members was asking for information, and I can't just leave it there.

In the absence of any rules—

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

No, that's perfectly fine.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

—I'm trying to go as gently as possible, but you're not making that easy. That's the problem.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

No, it's perfectly fine. I'm just pointing out that we should be discussing this at the next opportunity for committee business.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

Yes, we will, I have no doubt: ad nauseam, I'm sure we will discuss it.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

At any rate, what I'm hearing is that this information will come to the member, of course it will be in both languages, and it will be circulated to all members of the committee.

That, I believe, concludes our hearing.

I now need to put two questions to the committee.

First, shall vote 20, less the amount granted in interim supply, carry?

FINANCE

Auditor General

Vote 20—Auditor General – Program expenditures and, pursuant to paragraph 29.1(2)(a) of the Financial Administration Act, authority to expend revenues received..........$74,100,653

(Vote 20 agreed to)

Second, shall I, as the chair of the committee, report the main estimates to the House?

This is debatable and amendable, but is there agreement?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

We have unanimous agreement on both of those.

That concludes the work we have, Madam Clerk? That takes care of all the legalities? Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Ferguson and Madam Sachs, thank you so much. We say this a lot, but we mean it and you need to hear it: we do appreciate the work you do for us as parliamentarians and, more importantly, for Canadians.

Thank you both very much for being here today.

We will adjourn this portion of the meeting and move to business.

So this is adjourned: do I have a motion to go into camera, or are we going to do it in public?

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

We do what we normally do, Chair.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I have a motion to go in camera. All in favour?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

We will suspend for a moment as we switch over.

[Proceedings continue in camera]