Evidence of meeting #140 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 clients.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Sylvain Ricard  Interim Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Alex Benay  Chief Information Officer of the Government of Canada, Treasury Board Secretariat
Graham Flack  Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development, Department of Employment and Social Development
Lori MacDonald  Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
General  Retired) Walter Natynczyk (Deputy Minister, Department of Veterans Affairs
Paul Glover  President, Shared Services Canada
Leslie MacLean  Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development and Chief Operating Officer for Service Canada, Department of Employment and Social Development
Harpreet Kochhar  Assistant Deputy Minister, Operations, Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Dillan Theckedath  Committee Researcher

May 30th, 2019 / 10:30 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Thank you. I'm thinking three steps ahead and losing my current step.

There was a government-wide austerity program. Much to my chagrin—to tell you the truth—the Auditor General of the day said that they could live with those cuts because they saw themselves as being team players. They recognized that the government got elected with a mandate and that mandate was being carried out. Remember that they don't play politics. They follow the government, whomever the people decide will be that government. At the time, they felt that they could manage within the reduction and—here's the key thing, colleagues—not affect the work they do for Parliament. For us, that work is performance audits. It used to be called value-for-dollar audits.

I was raring for a good fight. Like today, I thought, “You're cutting the Auditor General?” What was I going to do, though? The Auditor General said they could do it. It's a non-partisan committee and if the AG says they can do it, then fair enough. They did it. We were not impacted by it.

This is the first time in Canadian history that the Auditor General has told Parliament that the executive branch is not giving them sufficient money to carry out their audit plan for the year ahead. As my colleague just said, they had to cancel them. Two of them were the ones that I mentioned. This has never happened before.

These are my last days here and I don't have to worry about getting elected. I have to tell you that I'm shocked it's you guys—the Libs. For one thing, it's the antithesis of what you talk about and what you ran on—accountability, transparency and service. A lot of my constituents bought into that argument because it's the kind of thing they want from government.

In the absence of an overall austerity program—which doesn't legitimize it, but at least provides an understandable context—there can only be two motivating reasons that I can think of. One is retaliation because we still have a funding mechanism where the very people the Auditor General audits also decide how much money they get. We just had an e-commerce report that didn't make the government look so good. They're the very people that the Auditor General had to sit down and negotiate with and they're the very people, for the first time in the history of Canada, who have said “no”. They recommended it up through the ministers and it's the ministers at the end of the day.

Don't kid yourself. We've all been around long enough. Staff reports matter. Staff recommendations matter. They got slammed by the Auditor General in that e-commerce report, yet they're the very same people they had to go to, cap in hand, to ask for funding—only this time they said “no”.

It's either retaliation—which would be unacceptable—or the government really is hiding from things like the cybersecurity report because they know what the last report said, and perhaps, I would assume, they know how much has been done or not done. There would also be people in government who would be very aware of what our threat level is, and whether it's improved in the last 10 years.

If you have enough arrogance to believe you're going to be the government when that report comes out, a sharp political move—unacceptable from an ethical point of view—that a good autocrat would act on is to make sure that audit doesn't happen. The thinking is that the price of taking the heat for not providing adequate funding for the first time in Canadian history is less than the criticism they would get when that report comes out.

I have to say, I'm just perplexed as much as anything. If it was perhaps another party in power that had a different view of accountability and transparency, that might help me understand the context. For the life of me, I can't understand. Well, I haven't yet had a chance to hear from colleagues officially, so I won't speculate until I hear what they have to say on the record on this issue.

This is big. I can remember Tyler and I sitting up at night trying to figure out how we could force the government to give us one particular piece of information that we needed in a key hearing. I would just get myself so wrapped up and concerned that we needed that information.

Parliament is entitled to that information. Parliament needs that information. As I remind people a lot, Parliament is supreme—not the government. Parliament decides who government is. Parliament decides who the prime minister is. Parliament decides when the prime minister and the government get fired.

10:40 a.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

In principle.

10:40 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

My colleague says “in principle”, but it is still the case.

When I look at something like this, where never mind a detail of information or a letter or a report that we need to do our job properly on an audit report, rather than that being what's in front of us, the issue is whether the bloody audit's going to be done, this is insane and I don't get the politics of it. That's why I say to the government members—through you, Chair, with respect—that I don't understand the politics of this.

Why on earth, on the doorstep of a federal election, would the Government of Canada pull funding or deny funding for one of the most motherhood departments in all of government?

The department and the person that I call the best friend Canadians have on Parliament Hill is the Auditor General, and in the ramp-up to an election, for the first time in Canadian history, the sitting government decides it's going to cut. That's assuming it's not cut but an increase denied, which has the effect of a cut.

Maybe Gerry Butts' leaving has left you with absolutely nobody with any strategic sense at all. I have to tell you that I was hoping that, once the you-know-what hit the fan, the message would go up through the system and there would be a minister somewhere who said, “Wait a minute, what?” I was a minister and you were a minister, Chair. You can't follow every single moving part, especially if you have a big ministry. You have to rely on your staff and you're approving things at a certain level. Trust me, $10.8 million, the finance minister of this G7 country almost spills that much in a week.

It's not about the money. It can't be, with $10.8 million. I think that's the number. That's chump change in terms of the federal budget, but in terms of the importance to Parliament, it's a thousand times greater.

If the politics make no sense—and they don't—there has to be another reason, and that's why I'm looking at this and I'm saying, there are only two that really come to my mind. It's revenge. It's Treasury Board officials—or if I'm wronging them, it's whomever the people are who sit down at the staff level and talk about budgets with our agents of Parliament. I remind colleagues that the OAG are not the executive's employees, not cabinet employees, but Parliament's employees, and this nonsense that we have a funding mechanism that says they have to go back to the very people they audit makes no sense.

The government—and I'll get to this a little later—made a commitment that it was going to provide an alternate mechanism. It hasn't happened. In fact, I didn't even know about this letter, but there was a letter in January of this year that went to the Clerk of the Privy Council, signed by all Parliament's—not the government's—officers, every one of them, basically saying, “You promised you were going to do this. It hasn't happened. We need it to happen quick.” That was January. Crickets!

So retaliation is.... I mean it's hard to believe in this country that something like that would happen, for those of us who know how this system works, but I'm desperately trying to find reasons that would explain to me why the government is doing this, because if we could figure out why they're doing it, then we can work at focusing on that and getting it unravelled. But for the life of me.... So that's one possibility.

The other.... I suppose there are three because there's also the unknown. Both of those could be wrong and there could be some other thing motivating it that I don't know. Fair enough, but when I look at that combatting cybersecurity and I think how important that is.... Think ahead. What if there was a report in a year or two that said we're more vulnerable than we were 10 years ago?

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON

Mr. Chair, on a point of order, it's 10:45. With how much time is left, some of us have other engagements and consent is needed for continuation.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

All right. That is correct. We have about 45 seconds.

Just so everyone understands, on the moving of a motion, he has unlimited time. Therefore, he can do that.

We do have another committee coming in here. If we're unable to extend this, what I'm going to do is—

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Okay, that's fine.

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

For the record, I didn't want an extension. I wasn't seeking one.

I'm sorry, Mr. Arya was asking about extending.

Nobody raised the issue. I assumed we'd adjourn at the usual time.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

On Tuesday, would we then come back and finish this?

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

We would resume.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

On Tuesday, I think what we would do is the reports first, and then we would come to this, because we want to get—

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

No, I understand that, but procedurally, I have the floor.

I defer to you, as you're the chair, but it seems to me that the next meeting is what we call a continuation of the previous meeting, because I have the floor. Therefore, when we come back, I have the floor, and when I'm done, we can move a vote on the motion and move to other items.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Of course, I'm just consulting with the clerk here.

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Yes, of course.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

The clerk tells me that we also have an agenda, and the agenda has called for reports. It's not as though we have invited guests.

I'm in the committee's hands. Would you want to come back to committee business, or would you want to do the reports first and then move to committee business—or not committee business, but the estimates?

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

We do have to finish the estimates and we have a timeline for that, too.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Would you like to do that at the beginning?

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

I'd like to ask Mr. Christopherson, in all good faith, what is his expectation? Is it taking another half-hour or another hour? Are we going to be able to deal with the reports? That's the question.

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I'm going to give you as honest an answer as I can at this time.

I'm going to do everything I can to try to keep this issue alive, because my goal before we rise is to get the government to blink, to realize this is wrong and to put the money back. In the absence of that, I'm going to use every tool I have.

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

That means we won't have reports to table. That's what it means.

10:45 a.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I've thought this through. There are three aspects to what we do. There's the audit itself, which is tabled and the public sees it. We hold a public hearing, which is the second big one. The third one is that we do reports.

The first two have been done with all the chapters. The issue I'm dealing with is whether there will even be audits to deal with next time, and I think it's more important—

10:45 a.m.

Liberal

René Arseneault Liberal Madawaska—Restigouche, NB

Mr. Chair, it is already too late. I have another committee meeting and I have to go.

10:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

That is correct. Therefore, we are going to adjourn and we will come back next Tuesday.

The meeting is adjourned.