Public Accounts Committee on May 31st, 2017

Evidence of meeting #61 for Public Accounts in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rcmp.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Public Accounts of Canada 2016

Report 4, Mental Health Support for Members — Royal Canadian Mounted Police, of the Spring 2017 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Michael Ferguson Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General

Bob Paulson Commissioner, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Commissioner Joanne Pratt Assistant Commissioner and Chief Audit and Evaluation Executive, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Commissioner Daniel Dubeau Deputy Commissioner and Chief Human Resources Officer, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Joanne Butler Principal, Office of the Auditor General

5 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

That's one person.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Yes, okay.

5 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Heads are nodding over here.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

All in favour, then, of concluding this aspect and moving to committee business?

5 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I only have one more question.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

But a five-minute question is—

5 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

No, no—

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Then Ms. Mendès has a question, and I'm not going to start on that back and forth.

5 p.m.

NDP

David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Well, wait a minute—

5 p.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

Can I just make a comment here, if I may, Mr. Chair? And I agree that we should shut it down. We need to deal with committee business.

There are still some questions that are left over. Is it possible to put down our questions in writing and send them to both the Auditor General and the commissioner, and then ask for answers? I'm asking because I have no idea if it's possible.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

That is possible. And it's possible for them at any time to submit answers, to supplement their answers and to....

5 p.m.

Liberal

Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—Saint-Lambert, QC

I ask because I do have a question, but it's reasonably complicated, and I wouldn't expect it to be answered in three minutes.

5 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson

Well, I'm not going to extend it for one. I have others who have said they wanted....

I'll take that, then, as a motion to adjourn this portion of the meeting.

I want to thank you for coming today and for your testimony.

Commissioner, we obviously do thank you for your service. I know you are taking a well-deserved retirement this summer. I think you can look back on a great deal of accomplishments at the RCMP. In areas like this we all realize, whether it's the RCMP or others, that this evaluation was done midway through the delivery of the strategy. However, we expect that the Auditor General's recommendations will be responded to in an orderly way and that we'll see improvement. I think you can pretty well expect that by next fall, you'll be required to come back to at least update us on how these things are going. We're talking about people's lives here. Everyone expects that these types of mental health issues, although they're very difficult to understand and deal with, are being dealt with. So we can expect that.

Thank you for being here. All the best.

And to our Auditor General, thank you, again, for a good report.

We will suspend for two minutes so they can take their leave. Then we will go in camera to deal with some very important committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]