Public Accounts Committee on May 4th, 2015

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I have no doubt of your determination to do that, but like all of us, we'll leave it to Canadians to decide who's going to be here the next time.

Mr. Woodworth, you have the floor.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Auditor General and your staff who are with you here today.

I believe the value you bring to the Government of Canada lies mainly in your ability to assess gaps in departmental performance, which you communicate to the departments, and which they hopefully will fill. Whatever happens in Parliament, I appreciate that bit of your work.

With respect to what happens in Parliament, have you ever conducted an audited survey to determine the number of members of Parliament who read your semi-annual reports?

[Michael Ferguson]

We do from time to time conduct surveys of parliamentarians. Usually, it is committee members as opposed to the full population of members.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

With respect to the survey of the number of parliamentarians who read the reports of the public accounts committee?

[Michael Ferguson]

I never conducted a survey on that, no.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm going to just suggest and leave those thoughts with you.

If your intent is to engage with members of Parliament, that would be good information to have. I mean that quite seriously because I'm not sure how far into Parliament even what we do in this committee penetrates, so I leave that with you.

Can you tell me how many hearings or briefings you may have had with the Senate in 2013-14.

[Michael Ferguson]

I don't have the exact number of hearings that I was in front of the Senate alone.

In 2013-14 there were 14 hearings and briefings in front of the public accounts committee. There were nine in front of other House of Commons and Senate committees. I don't know exactly, of those nine, how many were in front of the Senate and how many were other House of Commons committees.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Does the Senate have a committee equivalent to the House of Commons public accounts committee by chance?

[Michael Ferguson]

I don't have the exact term, but it's the finance committee. I've forgotten the exact name of it.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

While we all have different views about the Senate these days, most senators would like to participate fully in the work of Parliament. It may be that your efforts to engage with parliamentarians would benefit from thinking along those lines.

On page 18 of the performance report, 2013-14 estimates, the statement is made:

In the 2013–14 fiscal year, the number of times we appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts remained consistent with the previous two years.

I know how cautiously you word these things, so could you explain to me what you mean when you say it “remained consistent with”.

[Michael Ferguson]

That would just be, essentially, that the number of times we appeared before this committee, while it wasn't exactly the same, was sort of close enough to say that those hearings continued to be at the same level.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

With respect to the public accounts committee, then, it's been at the same level for three years at least.

[Michael Ferguson]

In terms of the number of times we appeared, yes.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That's right. Thank you.

Can you tell me how many.... Actually, let me jump to something meaty here, if I may.

I noticed that in 2013-14, there were 29 performance audits done and one study, at a total cost of $41.2 million, which I average to be about $1.37 million each. Whereas it is planned in 2015-16 to do 21 performance audits at a total cost of $38.2 million, which my calculation reveals to be $1.819 million each. I further calculate that this represents about a 33% increase in the average cost per audit between those two years.

I wonder if you could tell me how or why that occurs. It seems rather large.

[Michael Ferguson]

I think the first thing is that I'd have to see all of the numbers.

But again, remember that in terms of the cost we put to our performance audits, it's not just the 29 and the 21; you also have to add in the special exams that we do. You have to add in the—

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Can I interrupt? I'm pretty sure that I got those figures from a chart which separated the cost of the performance audits from the cost of special exams.

Am I wrong about that?

[Michael Ferguson]

I'm not sure; I don't have the numbers in front of me.

Even so, we also do performance audits in the territories. I believe the numbers we're talking about here in terms of performance audits have been the performance audits that we present to the public accounts committee.

The other thing is that we are also doing the audit of the Senate—senators' expenses—which is an audit that has taken quite a bit of time and effort.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Compare—

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I'm sorry, Mr. Woodworth, we're way over time.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Sorry.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

I was giving a little latitude, but I'm going to have to bring it to a close.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, David Christopherson]

We'll move along to Mr. Allen, who now has the floor.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Ferguson, your budget numbers for 2013-14 show that you spent about $4 million less than the allocation. Yet the appropriation for 2015-16 is $78.3 million, which is actually $10 million less than before; it's somewhere around 13% less of the total budget than before. Notwithstanding the fact that you actually only spent $84 million, the allocation of $78 million still makes it $6 million less.

Is there a reason that you believe you can work inside of that budget allocation? Is it going to make things slightly more difficult, or do you think that the things that you planned out...?

You did say earlier that the department plans out a three-year window of things that it wants to do. Based on those appropriations, do you feel that the three-year window doesn't have to be adjusted, that you can actually go forward with what the plan that would be in place?

[Michael Ferguson]

The first thing I want to do, in response to that, is to make sure that we are looking at numbers that are comparable. The problem with all of these numbers is that there are adjustments and those types of things. I want to make sure that we're dealing with an apples-to-apples comparison.

For 2015-16 the main estimates amount is $78.3 million, as you mentioned. The comparable number in 2013-14 in the main estimates was the $84.3 million. That's the $6 million reduction. If you compare the $78 million to the $88.3 million, that's not an apples-to-apples comparison. It would take a while to go through and make that...but the relevant number is the $84.3 million to $78.3 million.

I will also use this opportunity to address your question and what the chair indicated at the beginning of the meeting, which is the question about whether we have enough to do our mandate. I think it's important to remember what it is we are asked to do. We have a statutory responsibility to do financial audits. We have a statutory responsibility to do special exams. In both cases, it's not just that we have a statutory responsibility to do those, but the organizations that we have to do them on are identified in statute as well. When we're putting together our budget, we have to dedicate the first part of our budget towards those things. Everything else that is left over is what we have to put toward performance audits. We have a statutory responsibility to do performance audit, but there's nothing in that statutory mandate that says how many.

My answer to those types of questions is that we're now still at a level where we are able to produce within that historical range of the number of performance audits that we have produced. I think any reduction from here, and any requirement to absorb any additional costs, will start to get us below that traditional amount of performance audits. We can continue to do performance audits, as our mandate requires, but we're at the point where any reduction will cause us to produce fewer performance audits than we historically have.