Evidence of meeting #135 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 buildings.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:55 a.m.
Director, Office of the Auditor General
The departments will be able to answer better, but we saw that they needed to certify that the information they were providing was complete and accurate for—
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NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Yes. It ended up being wrong. So not only was it submitted—A—then it went through some process to get certification—B—and it was still wrong.
Now I'm going to come back to the management. One of the things you're criticized for in this report is the information you give to Parliament and Canadians. That's not funding, that's competency. That's a question of making something a priority or not. Reporting to Parliament, whether you like it or not, is a pretty big priority, and that needs to be reflected here.
I'll go to my question now, Chair, because I know you'll eventually throw the net on me. I'd like everybody, including the auditor, to answer this, if we have time.
Where were the internal departmental audit committees? Where were they during all of this and where are they during all of this?
9:55 a.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of National Defence
I can begin, if that helps.
Our audit committee is intently tracking every single audit and management action plan. They actually rejected some of our actions and told us they were not sufficient. They are a critical part of the management of the department, and something on which I rely enormously. I spend as much time as I can with them. They are very engaged. Every audit we go to them and we review, and they review our management action plans with us before they're submitted.
9:55 a.m.
Acting Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada Agency
I share Jody's enthusiasm for working with audit committees. They too are highly focused on every OAG audit and every audit undertaken internally by the agency.
Also, on the broad program of restoration work that I've mentioned in my previous remarks, the $2.5 billion program, every audit committee session includes a review of our progress on that program of work.
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Liberal
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Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
So does ours. Our committee reviews every audit the Auditor General does. We go through our management action plan. We talk about what we're doing and then we give updates at the next departmental audit committee going forward.
For us actually, as I said earlier—and you may not have been here—the challenge is that when the system comes up and says there are 124 designated lighthouses and in fact there are 30 but for 94 there have been petitions for designation, the audit committee doesn't know that is not accurate. Once the Auditor General has seen it, we put that before the audit committee. We have a discussion about it. We talk about how we're going to fix it, and then we show how it's fixed later on.
10 a.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I have a problem with that, but can I hear from the auditor, please?
10 a.m.
Assistant Auditor General, Performance Audit, Office of the Auditor General
Madam Chair, we don't have particular information about where the departmental audit committees were with respect to 2003 and 2007 audits. I can confirm that the departmental audit committees of which I am aware, particularly National Defence since I've been to their departmental audit committee meetings—are committed to following up on the action plans, particularly the current action plans, the most recent audits we have done.
I think the problem some departmental audit committees will face and internal audits will face is with the information that is available for them to determine where the risks are so that they can go out and do their internal audits. What we saw here was that the information that would have been sufficient for them to have perhaps identified the risks and to have gone out and done this work was probably not there. We do identify that data was an issue and that it needs to be fixed, and once it gets fixed perhaps the internal audit shop will be able to do more work.
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NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
It seems to me they should at least be aware that they're not doing things right rather than just—
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Liberal
The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
Mr. Christopherson, I've given you a lot of leeway.
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Liberal
The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
Mr. Arseneault, I'll give you seven minutes to compensate for Mr. Christopherson's speaking time.
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Liberal
10 a.m.
Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Thank you.
I'll share my time with my friend Chandra Arya.
I have questions for the witnesses from the three departments.
First, I have a practical question. When you need to restore falling or aging infrastructure, what's the order of priority for repairing all the infrastructure owned by your departments? Is it based on the number of people who visit the tourist attractions, or on historic significance in chronological order? Of all the infrastructure, which infrastructure are you prioritizing this year?
Let's start with Parks Canada.
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Vice-President, Indigenous Affairs and Cultural Heritage Directorate, Parks Canada Agency
Thank you for your question.
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Liberal
10 a.m.
Vice-President, Indigenous Affairs and Cultural Heritage Directorate, Parks Canada Agency
In 2012, we conducted an assessment of all the sites, buildings and properties, while taking into account a number of factors.
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Liberal
The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
I must interrupt you because we're being called to vote.
Are you all in agreement that we stay until 10:20? We have a vote. The bells are ringing.
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An hon. member
The bells just stopped.
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Liberal
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Liberal
René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB
Is the order of priority for repairing your infrastructure and assets based on their historic significance or on the number of tourists?