Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good afternoon.
I think you've already introduced my colleagues, Jill Wherrett, John Ossowski, Martin Bolduc, and Gilles Michaud.
As members know, Public Safety Canada is one of many working to implement the beyond the border action plan. At the time of its launch, the action plan was a first-of-a-kind horizontal undertaking, involving many federal organizations collaborating with a number of American counterparts.
It is essential that Canada and the United States adopt a coordinated approach to the four broad sectors of the action plan.
Those four elements include addressing threats early, facilitating trade and travel, coordinating cross-border law enforcement, and enhancing critical infrastructure and cybersecurity.
We've seen progress every year, and I know my CBSA colleagues will speak to the developments before and at the border, and the RCMP will speak to initiatives such as joint law enforcement.
For the Public Safety portfolio, the action plan provided the opportunity to work together to enhance our ability to address threats early, for example, through information sharing in immigration and national security.
Other examples of initiatives led by Public Safety would include improving the resilience of our cross-border critical infrastructure, and more effectively communicating threats and incidents in the area of cybersecurity to our industries.
We continue to build on the collaboration established in the framework of the action plan.
For example, we are moving forward with the implementation of the pre-clearance agreement through the introduction of legislation last June, and working with the U.S. on the implementation of new sites.
So, with that context in mind, I will speak briefly to our roles and responsibilities, before directly answering the recommendations made by the Auditor General.
In terms of Public Safety Canada's responsibilities, along with leading the development and implementation of several of the action plan's security and emergency preparedness initiatives, the department played a role in coordinating reporting to Canadians on the action plan on behalf of all departments.
The Privy Council Office was responsible for managing the governance of and coordinating Government of Canada efforts on the action plan, and working with the White House to publish an annual joint implementation report.
Public Safety Canada took on the responsibility of reporting to Canadians through an annual horizontal report, with guidance from the Treasury Board Secretariat on horizontal reporting.
Public Safety Canada, the CBSA, and RCMP play an important role in responding to six of the eight recommendations made by the Auditor General. Of those, two fall under the purview of Public Safety Canada.
Today I will speak about those two recommendations in particular.
I can speak for the portfolio in saying that the recommendations are welcome, and we are committed to finding more effective ways to report outcomes to Canadians. Specifically, reviewing performance indicators will help us concretely measure the benefits of the action plan and better demonstrate results to Canadians.
I will speak first about my department's response to the recommendations on the presentation of program results.
As we committed to in our response to the audit, we are reviewing all of Public Safety's initiatives to determine where changes to indicators are needed.
An example of where we will be making changes to our indicators is the regional resiliency assessment program, which evaluates the resilience of Canada's critical infrastructure assets.
Informed by the AG's recommendations, we have already put in place revised metrics to more clearly communicate benefits by measuring the changes undertaken based on our assessments. I'll note that out of the 12 initiatives we lead, over two-thirds have been completed. That's because many of these had a limited time frame with specific deliverables, for example, issuing a study of border fees or conducting joint threat assessments.
A number of these initiatives focused on outputs and their contribution to border security objectives.
The Auditor General's feedback will be carefully considered as we move forward with improving Public Safety's performance and reporting approach to meet Treasury Board's new policy on results, and the government's results and delivery agenda.
We will also build on our lessons learned since the action plan's inception, understanding the importance of good indicators to demonstrate results to Canadians. All of this will help us demonstrate results to provide a complete picture of progress to Canadians on all of our initiatives.
With regard to horizontal reporting, and with respect to the recommendations mentioned earlier, Public Safety was responsible for horizontal reporting on the progress of initiatives identified in the action plan. The department coordinates the reporting on spending and performance on behalf of, and with input from, all involved departments and agencies.
This reporting covers activities through the end of the current fiscal year 2016-17 to align with the period covered by the action plan. At this point, the bulk of the 34 initiatives will have met their action plan commitments. The annual horizontal reports on the beyond the border action plan are published as a supplement to Public Safety Canada's departmental performance reports and are available online.
In future we will redouble our efforts to clarify horizontal report presentation, for the benefit of all of those who are a part of the process.
In fact, we've already started making improvements to ensure more complete reporting and provide greater clarity, beginning with the 2015-16 horizontal report, which we'll publish in the coming months.
For example, rather than simply providing a snapshot of the previous year's progress on each initiative, we are working towards providing a more detailed picture of how each initiative has developed from the start. This includes financial data, such as cumulative spending to date, with an annex containing a breakdown by initiative.
We are also working collaboratively with federal departments and agencies to update the performance measurement framework and to ensure it reflects indicators currently in use. We will also ask beyond the border partners to review their indicators to assess whether each is still relevant or, if needed, to provide new indicators that might be a better fit, with a special focus on strengthening the indicators for intermediate or ultimate outcomes. We will be reinforcing a common costing framework in consultation with central agencies so that all departments and agencies report their accurate and complete financial information in a consistent manner.
Furthermore, we look forward to providing updated instructions during the next horizontal reporting cycle to participating departments and agencies to strengthen their ability to consistently apply common costing.
Due to these changes, Canadians will have a clearer image of each initiative and of the action plan overall.
In conclusion, we agree that better measurement of the beyond the border action plan's outcomes and clearer reporting will support transparency and help inform Canadians. We agree that Canadians need to see clear results as we move forward in the context of the new results and delivery approach of this government.
I'd be happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you.