Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 8th, 2017

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry. I was trying to give you a chance, but I don't think you're getting to my message and I have limited time. I apologize for interrupting you, but it's necessary.

In my opinion this is the weakest performance so far and you folks are the key ones. I hear a lot more apologizing and defending rather than telling us what you're going to do about it. When I asked how we got here, I didn't mean, “Did we have an AG report?” I meant, “How could we have directions given to departments and agencies that were so woefully inadequate in getting the results that were asked for?”

This is your second go at it. You did it a few years ago. On page 22 in the 2012 fiscal year, you were developing another guide on the management and reporting of horizontal initiatives. This is your second go-round, and you got it wrong the last time. What assurances do we have that you got it right this time and we're not going to be back here again in a couple of years going, “What the heck is with Treasury Board?”

[Brian Pagan]

I suggest as part of my reply I will table with the committee the existing guidance dated April 2014. It's entitled “Guide to Departments on the Management and Reporting of Horizontal Initiatives”.

As I said earlier, I genuinely believe that this becomes a solid starting point upon which to complete our response to the AG, the ideas that we will use to refine and hone existing guidance, in specific consultation with partners, to make sure our expectations are crystal clear with respect to the utilization of resources and reporting.

The guidance as it stands now specifies roles and responsibilities for lead departments. It talks about coordinating the MC and the TB process. It provides instruction on coordinating the collection and validation of financial and performance information. It is clear about the reporting requirements through part III of the estimates. Partner departments, likewise, have expectations laid out there. We have templates in their guidance that lay out what is to be costed, broken out by votes from Parliament—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is this the new stuff or the old stuff?

[Brian Pagan]

This is the basis upon which we are going to respond to the Auditor General's recommendations.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Is that going to be different from the last time you reviewed it in 2012-13?

[Brian Pagan]

It's our starting point, sir.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much. Again, I'm trying not to be rude, but I have limited time.

I'd like to ask the others here. Where were the internal audit committees? Of all these great auditors, these people who are aware of all these measurements and indicators, nobody anywhere in the internal auditing system said, “We're measuring things that don't really matter and we're not measuring the actual outcomes.”

Where were the audit committees? I would have thought one bright light somewhere in those meetings would have said that the emperor has no clothes here in terms of actually measuring whether we're getting anywhere or not.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Does anybody want to answer that?

[Brian Pagan]

I have one additional comment in response to Mr. Christopherson.

The most recent report compiled by Public Safety is dated 2014-15 on the beyond the border action plan initiative. It's on our website. This lays out the state of the art right now. It lays out, for the public and parliamentarians, the themes, the 32 measures, the performance indicators used, the dollars spent, and there is some good stuff in there.

If you're looking at outcomes, sir, I would commend to you page 4 of the 2014-15 report where they look at the NEXUS program versus conventional screening at borders. We see with the NEXUS program it's 33 seconds to get through a point of entry whereas with...and that's almost—

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

That was an example of where the wrong measurement was made because that's fine for that little part of the NEXUS system. The real question is, how long does it take somebody to actually get through—

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Mr. Christopherson, we'll come back, if you don't mind.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Sorry, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

You'll have another opportunity. Thank you.

It's Mr. Jeneroux—

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

I think you're over there first.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Oh, it's Mr. Chen. I'm really sorry.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is for Mr. Pagan.

I echo the thoughts of many of my colleagues in the House when I say that Canadians really expect good service, and within the context of this beyond the borders action plan, Canadians want our borders to be safe. They want them to be secure. They want them to be efficient both for the movement of people and the transportation of goods.

At the same time, however, Canadians want to know that our government is accountable, that it is transparent, and that it is running effectively. In that vein, I believe there is a daunting task before all of us here today to ensure that the multiple departments and agencies involved with this project are working collaboratively, that they are meeting the shared objectives that have been set out, that there is clear reporting on outcomes, and that performance measures are properly addressed.

With respect to recommendation 1.87, I know that the secretariat responded to the Auditor General's critique of the guidance, as we've been talking about here today, that was provided by the Treasury Board Secretariat. I know you've responded by saying that the updated guidance will be completed by July 2017, and that it will help clarify the roles and responsibilities for the reporting of financial and results information. But you're talked about a couple of concrete things: first, the horizontal initiatives database, and second, the guide on the management and reporting of horizontal initiatives.

Moving forward, guidance needs to be interpreted and because there is a multitude of agencies and departments involved, that interpretation can vary. What process is the Treasury Board Secretariat undertaking to ensure that the guidance is clear and that departments are able to interpret and apply it consistently?

[Brian Pagan]

At Treasury Board Secretariat the process by which we promulgate guidance or Treasury Board policies is based on engagement with our stakeholders, with the departments actually delivering the programs, so that we can satisfy ourselves that the guidance, the policy, is meeting a real need and is something that can be implemented by departments. The approach going forward will take the guide that we are going to be building from, which was developed in 2014. I mentioned there are 29 horizontal initiatives right now. We're going to engage with those departments and clarify with them what parts of that guidance are clear and should remain intact, and what elements might require further refinement or greater detail in order to provide the interpretation that departments need.

That process of consultation and engagement is the starting point for us. Subsequent to that, within the secretariat, we work across our different policy centres. There is the office of the comptroller general, our human resource function, and of course, the president's office, to make sure that the remedy we're proposing, the way forward, is consistent with other priorities and other activities in the secretariat so that we are not working at cross purposes to each other.

Then, upon release or promulgation of the guidance, it's a question of the elements of training and ongoing education involved because the people we consult with in the summer could be in a new job next spring, so we need to continually engage with departments. We do that through a variety of fora. We have WebEx town halls, where we can broadcast messages across the country. We have regular calls with communities, specific practitioners. In my case, I deal closely with the chief financial officers and the deputy chief financial officers. We would educate and inform through that process.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

Thank you.

[Gina Wilson]

Just to supplement Mr. Pagan's comments and to respond to you, Mr. Chen, I think you're asking how we are going to integrate all of these new tools and systems with the new reporting framework for beyond the border, going forward.

What I wanted to mention is that we are establishing a horizontal initiative reporting working group with all the departments, making sure that it is consistent with the Treasury Board performance measurement reporting guidelines, those new tools. We're taking all these things into consideration moving forward. That working group will be meeting going into April.

Following the next meeting, Public Safety will be circulating a record of decision. We'll be providing a draft updated performance measurement framework as well as instructions with a formal call letter requesting a thorough review of that performance measurement document, again ensuring that we're liaising with Treasury Board and their new reporting guidelines, and so on, so that all of these things mesh going forward.

I just wanted to add that.

[Shaun Chen, Liberal, Scarborough North, ON]

That's very helpful, because too often we hear that departments and agencies are working in silos and that there's a lack of interconnectedness. We hear it from the ground, from constituents, and from people who oftentimes don't know where to go, or they get different information from different places.

Mr. Pagan, you have also referenced the TBS InfoBase tool. There are a lot of these tools that we're talking about. We're talking about a database. We're talking about an InfoBase tool. We're talking about different structures where there is cross-collaboration.

In terms of the horizontal initiatives database with the TBS InfoBase tool, how will that specifically allow you to ensure that the data is integrated, that it's accessible, and that the results in cost and performance can be clearly articulated to Canadians?

[Brian Pagan]

That's a very important point.

Through our consultations and engagement with different departments and stakeholders, we've heard quite often that the data is out there. The challenge is finding it. What we have right now, the database known as TBS InfoBase and the horizontal initiatives database are perfect examples of that.

The idea is to integrate these so that it's effectively one-stop shopping. If one had a question about resource utilization in the Public Service of Canada and were to go to a single site and query by department, region, or name of an initiative, one should be able to find access to that information.

That's our vision. It's the vision of the President of the Treasury Board. We're aware of some very good models out there currently in use that we can build on and replicate. The idea is to take the existing holdings and progressively integrate or amalgamate these into a single source to provide ease of access.

[The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Thank you very much.

We're starting a round of five-minute questions and comments.

Mr. Jeneroux, go ahead.

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Thank you all for being here today.

I'm going to jump around a little bit in terms of the questioning.

The first question is to you, Ms. Cheng. We had Mr. Ferguson here on Monday. We now have you. Of everything you've heard of the detailed action plan the Treasury Board Secretariat has put forward, are you comfortable that a number of these initiatives are being met?

[Nancy Cheng]

From our perspective, I think it speaks to the importance of the collective initiatives. The dollar amounts aren't significant if you compare them with transfer payments—the scale of the Canadian operation is about a billion dollars overall—but the objectives are really important.

We're talking about Canada-U.S. border security, enhancing security there. Three of the four themes Mr. Malcolm Brown spoke to on Monday highlighted the importance of security. Facilitating travel and trade are important things. Ultimately, what we really want is for the government to explain, with the spending of the money, what we are achieving. Are we enhancing security?

The complexity Mr. Pagan speaks of is very real. Horizontal issues are not easy to manage, especially with our Westminster model and the accountability relationship—the vertical, the ministerial, and so on. But this is all the more reason for people to get together and help explain that. How would you expect an oversight body like this one to figure out what's actually going on, or for the public to ask for public scrutiny on money that's being spent? That's the nub of the issue.

Mr. Pagan is explaining that he's helping by offering guidance on how these horizontal initiatives can be discussed so that people know what's actually happening. Part of it is accountability, and part of it is monitoring and managing. Do we have the right information to say, “Here are the initiatives, here's the commitment, and we'll continue the same way”? There should be a checkpoint where we can say that maybe it's not going so well and ask what we really know and whether it is serving a real purpose.

We're seeing that some of the details and some of the initiatives are not working all that well. Are we learning from that? As to the additional money that we still want to spend—at this point in the audit I think we are still looking at $500 million being on the table as an expense—we should determine whether we are using it in the most effective way to help move those agendas we talked about to support those objectives. That's really the nub of the question.

Part of the guidance is looking for more specificity to help people understand how they need to step up. What does being a lead department mean? Some of the things we see is that the partner departments are providing—

[Matt Jeneroux, Conservative, Edmonton Riverbend, AB]

Sorry, Ms. Cheng, I don't want to lose the rest of my time.