Evidence of meeting #129 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A video is available from Parliament.
10:15 a.m.
Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, CPC
I know you're short of time, but you're starting to talk about generalities. I'm asking for something specific, namely, what you are going to do as a department to go back and look at all the Auditor General's recommendations and get them done within a reasonable time.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Mr. Zimmer, let me jump in here.
They have already given us an action plan, which we will follow up, but I think the question is still good.
You have given an action plan. In your opinion this action plan is on time and you're going to be able to fulfill what you have committed to in this, correct?
10:15 a.m.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Absolutely. We are on track with every one of our commitments. Frequently the OAG does follow-up audits, and we do follow-up audits of our internal audits.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
10:15 a.m.
Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
It is.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
That can be a question that a lot of members are concerned about, because we see departments commit to something time and time again and then don't do it.
Let me say that in this public accounts committee we've now taken on a follow-up approach so that deputy ministers—and Mr. Shugart is not one of them—will not come in and have a “one and done”, that is, doing one meeting and thinking they're done for another year.
We will follow up on these with our analysts. I have already been told by our analyst at this meeting that he is confident that the timelines in the action plan can be met and are reasonable. But if they are not done, then we will invite departments back. I know Mr. Shugart knows that the second time on one issue is not a good meeting typically.
Thank you for that question. It gives us the opportunity to explain it a little bit.
I want to thank our guests for their testimony today, the Auditor General for his good work on this, and the department for being here and being accountable.
We're going to suspend this meeting. I'm going to ask those who don't have to stay to leave fairly quickly so we can have this in camera committee meeting where we have two items we want to quickly discuss.
[Proceedings continue in camera]