Thank you very much, Auditor General, and your team.
I'd like to focus, if I may, on your special message to us. This doesn't happen very often, thank goodness. I've only seen it once or twice in my 12 or 13 years here. I want to set it up by reading the opening paragraph. Keep in mind that this is the process by which the Auditor General brings problems. If there are problems at all in terms of his work, this is how it's done. It's a message to us, and then it's in our lap.
Chair, the opening paragraph of this message is as follows:
I have prepared this message to inform the House of Commons—as subsection 7(1)(b) of the Auditor General Act instructs me to do—that we did not receive all the information we needed for two of the audits we presented as part of the spring 2017 reports of the Auditor General to the Parliament of Canada.
Further on, it says:
In both cases, Finance Canada confirmed the existence of the information we requested. However, as the Department considered this information to be confidential to Cabinet, it determined that it could not provide the information to our auditors.
We understand clearly that there are certain things that are exempt from your reach. That's cabinet confidentiality, where there's advice to ministers, recommendations to the government, and anything pertaining to the debate that takes place. That's confidential, and it should remain so. However, all the information—analysis, reports, any kinds of submissions that feed into that recommendation—is all fair game, because it's just analysis. Oftentimes what the Auditor General needs to do is to confirm that it was done, which is the case here.
As I understand this, and it gets a little complicated, you, Auditor General, were denied the information initially, and—my words—the current government was brought kicking and screaming, to the point where they finally passed an order in council that released the information as far back as the beginning of this government.
Number one, a severe crack on the wrist for having to be forced to do what they should have done by law, but an acknowledgement that they did do the right thing at the end of the day and that the immediate problem is solved.
However, Chair, we still have two problems, as I see it. One is that there's more information needed. This audit is not concluded. It remains unfinished business because the Auditor General could not get the information.
The government, again kicking and screaming, has brought us as far back as when they took power. We don't have that information going farther back, and apparently it's the Clerk of the Privy Council or someone in a senior bureaucratic position who has the responsibility to protect the things that need to be kept confidential from previous governments. We have sorted it out with the current government, but not with the previous.
I'll ask, but I don't think you yet have a definitive legal answer for us. We may end up calling in the parliamentary law clerk. As far as I'm concerned, the right of Parliament to demand papers, documents, and persons is absolute. It seems to me that if Parliament says we want that document, there's a way to get it, especially since it's not captured by cabinet confidentiality.
We need to find a way to force that document into the light of day, as the law commands that it should. However, we also need to be riding shotgun and putting pressure on the Privy Council to live up to their word to not just do the order in council change—I don't have time to get into the details—but the other thing the Auditor General wants going forward is based on a first principles approach. It's not every document listed as it comes along, but rather a set of principles that says these are the types of documents you can access. That will remove a lot of this.
I didn't leave a lot of time, but are there any thoughts that you have on that, Auditor General, especially correcting me if I have any of my understandings wrong?