Public Accounts Committee on May 30th, 2019

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll now move to Mr. Chen, please.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here.

I want to echo the comments made earlier by some of my colleagues, and to thank and acknowledge Mr. Christopherson for his contributions. He will leave an incredible void of knowledge and experience on this committee, and I know he will be missed.

I am not feeling well today, but I did manage to make it to committee, and I'm not feeling much better reading some of this in the report. Paragraph 1.13 from the Auditor General, the call centres “sent millions of calls back to the automated system or told callers to go to the website or to call back later”. If any of us as elected officials did that to our constituents, we'd all be out of a job. We really would. It's unacceptable. Imagine constituents calling our offices and we have an automated message telling them to check out a website or to call back later. Then they call back and they're put on a wait-list. That is unacceptable.

Paragraph 1.48, “At the end of our audit, five years after the federal government began to modernize the technology for all of its 221 call centres, the initiative was rolling out to only 8.” Really? I was on a travel website and a box kept appearing on my screen saying they had a live agent who could help me. In the world out there, people are being proactive, making sure there is good customer service and that people can get correct information and talk to somebody, whether it's on a website or on the phone.

Here we are talking about a call centre, which I do agree for a lot of Canadians is still the most accessible way, yet we can't even get the technology up to speed.

Mr. Benay mentioned earlier that the IT policy in the department had not been changed for 14 years. I find that incredible. Can you share some of the changes that were made to the policy?

[Alex Benay]

Yes, certainly.

We introduced the concept for new technology introduction, for example, with cloud technologies and other things that were directed. We were able to actually move to more service conversations in our policy instruments—that we do not do technology for technology's sake.

I think the lesson we've learned from that failure is the fact that at Treasury Board Secretariat we need to be able to be in a position to renew our policies much faster, especially in a space such as technology, for example, which, as we all know, moves very rapidly. Now what we're starting to do, for example, is that many of our directives have six-month refresh cycles, which we're starting to introduce, to make sure we do not get back into a similar position where we have not necessarily kept up with the times on our policy directions to departments.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

I'm very happy to hear that. The road is moving ahead with technology, be it private sector or other institutions, and their success really depends on it. The success of companies depends on their ability to adapt to change in the information world in which we exist, so I'm happy to hear that some progress is being made.

I do have another question for Ms. MacDonald regarding the web content that is written in plain language at a grade 8 level. I know from my constituency that a lot of folks who are trying to access services and understand programs within IRCC are potentially newer immigrants, those who may not have the grade 8 reading level. Can you speak to the rationale for that level? Also, how did that decision get made?

[Lori MacDonald]

Thank you very much for the question.

One of the things we do is client satisfaction surveys. We do user ability testing with people outside our department and with our clients. We have a centre they come to. We gather information from overseas—our VACs, our international offices overseas—and what we do is collectively look at what issues are being raised and what kinds of things are pain points that are coming up.

One of the issues that has been identified to us is the issue of being able to communicate in the language of their choice. What we have looked at is how we actually create a system that meets the greatest needs of people in terms of being able to use a language.

In our call centre, we use both French and English, and we've built into our system the capacity to use interpreters for people who don't have capacity in those two languages. We took the information from the feedback that was received to determine what the right level is for using that plain language on our Internet. Consistently, it has been in that zone of that grade 8 plain language area, but at the same time, we continue to get feedback from our clients to finesse that as we update our programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Chen.

I have one more speaker.

Mr. Sarai, please, you have five minutes.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you. I have a lot of questions, but first I want to commend Mr. Christopherson for his wisdom, experience and mentorship—

[René Arseneault, Liberal, Madawaska—Restigouche, NB]

His wisdom? Are you sure?

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Yes, I think he has some deep down. He has been very helpful. I'm probably the newest member on this committee, except for Mr. Davidson, and Mr. Christopherson has been a mentor to all of us, I think, in terms of seeing the appropriate questions and how quickly he can zest up and put all you guys to task every single week, especially for the Auditor General.

Thank you for your service. I know that you'll make your community proud and that you have made your community proud.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

My question is for you, Mr. Ricard. What were the objectives of the audit?

Service standards are definitely a very important thing, because the first person they come to—or probably one of the first they come to besides the offices of the various ministries—is their local MP. They tell us that they were calling and were not attended to, and that the call was dropped after five minutes or 10 minutes or they left, and it was horrible. We hear this time and time again.

It's also, by the reverse token, a very difficult standard. What is an appropriate standard? Is one minute too long? Is 120 seconds too long? Is 30 seconds too long? Are there options people have other than just holding on? What brought you to do this audit? What are the service standards that you look to in terms of perhaps other industrial standards in North America?

[Sylvain Ricard]

If I were to summarize the audit objective, it was in line with.... All the time, we're trying in audits to make sure that we have an impact in terms of the ultimate outcome, which is service to Canadians.

On this one, with 25% or 26% of Canadians wanting or needing to use the phone to reach out to government, we felt it was very important for us to do that audit. As was mentioned before, there are other channels that were not covered by this audit—the web, the automated system. We focused on that 25%, who may be in rural regions or with some disabilities. We felt it was very important for us to do this audit to ultimately have an impact and make a difference.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Did you notice the amount of effort—or lack of effort, perhaps—being made to enable call centres to officially call back? Is there a push to have people go to alternate channels rather than call centres?

You notice that about banks these days. You notice it in other industries. When paying your phone bill, if you have any questions, there's a real push to go online. In some cases, if you go to CRA, for example, it's almost impossible to find a phone number to contact them. It will lead you in almost every direction to not get a phone call or a phone number. It wants you to do everything digitally online.

Is that the case you found in these various departments, that there's a push to not call but to use alternate means—email, fax or go online—to access your own account?

[Sylvain Ricard]

I don't believe we can speak to that. We didn't audit the intent, if there was an intent behind that to reduce the service on the phone because it would be covered through other channels. We have not audited that.

As I said earlier, when you realize that 25% of Canadians need the phone to access government for various—and very valid—reasons, and you start an audit like this one, trying to make a difference, you see how transparent or clear the service standards are so that individuals who call know what to expect in terms of service level.

You need to have service standards in place. That's one of the recommendations we made: Have standards in place so that Canadians know what to expect, and management and government know how and where to improve. That's a very important part of the audit. It's about service standards, again, from the perspective of clarity for Canadians on what to expect. Service level is not for us to determine. Whatever it is, as determined by government and by management, is fine. We're just auditing against that requirement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Sarai.

I want to thank all of our guests. It's a big table for a good reason. We have many here today and I think you've all given us more clarity on how you are going to address the challenges you have.

I think all members have made it abundantly clear that, as members of Parliament, we hear about this. We want to pass on to you that our expectation, as a public accounts committee, is that Canadians, taxpayers and people in need of government services can get them on a fair timeline and can get some kind of assurance that when they pick up the phone or go online, somebody is listening or is going to respond quickly. Thank you.

We have your action plan. Even though we're coming into an election—and a number of you have heard that this may be the last public meeting—be certain that the new public accounts committee that will begin next fall will pick up on where we've left off on studies such as this. It will be just as important for them to make sure we've seen some accomplishments and some of those goals met.

We're going to suspend. We're going to ask the crowd if they could leave fairly quickly. We have more business we have to do in the next now only 20 minutes.

We're suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Committee, we'll call this meeting back to order. I'll remind you that we are still public.

We are here to discuss the estimates and the remainder of the estimates. Before we do that, I have one little piece for information, as everybody's been saying their congratulations to everyone. Dillan here, one of our researchers, and our analyst, has been appointed as visiting research director for the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation.

[Voices]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

He will help other Canadian public accounts committees, and Vietnam and Rwanda, for example, develop capacity within their committees. It doesn't mean he's leaving us, which is the good news. I just think the good work that he has done here, as well as that of all our researchers, is being noted and being used across the country.

Thank you, Dillan.

[Dillan Theckedath, Committee Researcher]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Also, we were given notice of motion at our last meeting and I'll go back to Mr. Christopherson who gave us the notice of motion and he can now decide to move it or not.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Yes, I wish to exercise my right to move my motion. I move:

That the committee condemns the underfunding of the Office of the Auditor General; that the committee recommend that funding to the OAG be increased by $10.8 million annually; and, that the committee report this recommendation to the House.

The $10.8 million is the money they asked for. Now this doesn't necessarily affect the estimates process. It's a standalone motion that we're sending to the government. Some were wondering why this was in order since we can't increase on estimates. That's a separate process. We're not doing that. This is a standalone motion.

If I might, Chair, with your indulgence, I will say about Dillan that you will know that the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation is our prime resource consultant on how to professionally do our job and how to constantly up our game. You will know that in the last while I've joined the board of directors of the CAAF, and in part the idea of having Dillan come in was a recognition when we were doing some international work, particularly in Rwanda earlier in the year, that one of the key aspects of making committees work—this is the benefit of international travel when you get a chance to see how others do it—is the analyst.

If you think about the role the analysts play and what we do, they're that magic elixir that allows this to actually work because we have such trust in their professionalism. There was a recognition that when we're helping countries like Rwanda...and CAAF has a long-term commitment with Rwanda and I'll likely be going back there myself and possibly to Vietnam also to work with their public accounts.

Now CAAF has the ability through Dillan to not only provide expert advice and training to the Office of the Auditor General staff and auditors, and then also public accounts members like us, but also to reach out to the analysts and train them on the importance of the job they have. It's a real coup for us. I think it says a lot about the calibre of the people who are hired here on the Hill. I just can't say enough about Dillan and the work he does. I know he's going to help us do a better job internationally.

Now I will go to my motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Quickly, because I have quite a speakers list on it. We have a set period of time here and hopefully we'll get through it.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

“Hopefully” is a good word; you never know.

This is a very serious issue. I want to go straight to the key thing, to something that public accounts members, in my humble opinion, should be asking themselves. Exactly what the heck are you going to do in the next Parliament? Right now, under the current funding plan, when we get a chapter like this, it's part of a report. Within that report, which is done twice a year, we have anywhere from eight to 13 chapters. Today was one. This committee has been very efficient and effective at hearings. I've been in other parliaments where we didn't do a fraction of the work, and that was deliberate. It was deliberate by the government members of the day to slow down the work of this committee and prevent accountability.

Right now, as I read the plans, the Auditor General has one planned performance audit for the fall 2019 report—one—and in 2020 there are three. Meanwhile, one of the areas the Auditor General wanted to look at was protecting Canada's north. Now that won't happen. Every single member of Parliament who represents a northern riding should be going out of their minds that there will be no accountability on the service government provides to their constituents. It won't happen. As important as that is, guess what other area will not be looked at next year: cybersecurity.

Now, Mr. Arya and others were kind enough to mention my longevity on this committee. One of the benefits of that is that I was here the last time we got the report on cybersecurity. It scared the living heck out of me and out of everybody who read it. The government responded and said, we get it and we're going to get on top of this thing. The report showed us that we were one of the most vulnerable in the G7. It was really, really worrisome. I know that my memory is not the best, but this goes back at least eight or 10 years, so it's been a decade hence.

We were in a bad place then, so after a decade, in an area as important as cybersecurity, where we had a failing report from the Auditor General, does it not make common sense, does it not seem prudent, that the Auditor General would go back in to see how they're doing and how we fare in the current climate? I think that makes sense. That's exactly what we want an Auditor General to do. We want them to keep an eye on these things and say it's time to go back in there and look at it. That's not going to happen.

It begs the question.... I heard my colleague Madam Mendès, whom I respect enormously, defending the government. I have to tell you, though, that in the absence of some kind of austerity program, which is what happened the last time the Auditor General's budget was reduced, I think in 2011, the government said....

I'm losing my train of thought here. What happened in 2011? Remind me; where am I?

[Alexandra Mendes, Liberal, Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC]

They accepted the cuts.