Public Accounts Committee on June 13th, 2019

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

That's true.

Mrs. Mendès, that isn't a point of order. It's a point of debate. However, I must admit that you're absolutely right.

That said, at a time when extremely important issues are on the table, we can see the government's interference.

I have a question for you, Mr. Ricard. How can we restore or preserve the independence of officers of Parliament?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Ricard.

[Sylvain Ricard]

I'll summarize, using other words, what Mr. Hayes said about the independence mechanism. Basically, our funding mustn't be negotiated by us and the entities that we audit.

[An hon. member]

Hear, hear!

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, all.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

That's a very good answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I do have one other question and a couple of comments.

Mr. Leswick, thank you for being here today. You've been in that department for many years, I guess. I recall that when I was minister in that department you were there, and we appreciate your being here today.

You and I and most people understand the budget consultation process and the budget. Thank you for your comments bringing us around to how this works. Thank you for explaining to us that the Auditor General's office supplied a business case, as it also did in 2011, as to exactly how this money would be spent. As you know, in 2011 we were in a global recession and all departments were asked to take a look at their spending and their budgets, as there was a deficit reduction action plan in place then.

We found out today from Mr. Arseneault's question that the Auditor General's office is included as one of those departments. I was not fully aware of that. I thought there was something different there with the Auditor General's office. Perhaps that's one area. The reason I say this is that I do know that as they make their budget requests, there's also some back and forth. At that time, it was Minister Flaherty going back and forth with the Auditor General as to whether or not you could indeed continue with these audits. There was the assurance that they could indeed. We have the letter. We knew that at that time Mr. Ferguson and the Auditor General's office said that they wanted to be team players, that all of the departments were doing this, and that they could do this without cutting audits.

Also, Mr. Christopherson brought up today the fact that the Treasury Board president, Mr. Clement, wrote a letter to the Auditor General saying that before this went through, he wanted to know whether there was going to be a reduction in the plan. He was given an assurance that there wasn't.

Mr. Ricard, did you receive that type of a letter from the Treasury Board president in the last budget?

[Sylvain Ricard]

Obviously, it was a former Auditor General at the time, but I'm pretty sure that my answer is accurate: No, we have not been engaged in confirming that we would be okay without the funding. In fact, we provided an assurance to the contrary in the business case. At the end of it, the Auditor General at the time was clear that without this funding we could not continue to do our job the way we'd been doing it; the number of audits would go from 24 to 14. That was written in the business case, in terms of an assurance or clarity of where we would end up without the $21 million at the time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

On a point of order?

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

Yes.

Mr. Chair, pardon me for interrupting you.

With regard to Mrs. Mendès' point of order, you said that we work in a non-partisan manner. However, the Auditor General just told us that he's being prevented from doing his job. I find it unacceptable that the Liberal Party is trying to keep the government's watchdog on a leash.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Again, Mr. Blaney, that is not a point of order.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

We must strive to preserve the independence of our institutions. I plan to keep taking every opportunity to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you. I think we agree with that, and it's a point of debate. Thank you, Mr. Blaney.

I just want to come back to this in my closing comments. That's almost like a challenge of the chair when you have a point of order like that. We have to go.

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

We have 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you for being here today. It's so much appreciated.

Mr. Leswick, very quickly, did the fact that our Auditor General was very ill play into this? Was the back and forth perhaps not as strong at the time? We did have an interim Auditor General at the time. Could that have been part of this?

[Nicholas Leswick]

I can only speak at a bureaucratic level, Mr. Chair, but no, I don't believe so.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Good. Thank you.

Thank you all for being here today. We want answers and we want to see Parliament continue to have the good work of our Auditor General and all parliamentary officers. Thank you, committee.

We're adjourned.