Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 3rd, 2017

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

—so don't let me down.

It's not often we get an opportunity in this line of work to give compliments, but on page 7 we do have one, and I want to give that shout-out. The Auditor General found that some organizations “gave fraud training to some of their employees, even though it was not required.” That's pretty good. Global Affairs gets a shout-out on that one. So does—and this is the main reason I did it, because it seems that when we deal with this department, everything is negative, so now we have something positive to say about it—Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. Colleagues will know how many times we've been on that file. So, kudos to them.

Now we'll move to the report itself.

At the top of page 7, in paragraph 1.31, the Auditor General says:

We found that all of the selected federal organizations had training programs for their employees on values and ethics and conflicts of interest. However, the organizations did not make sure their employees received training that was mandatory, and few employees were trained.

Now we'll move down to paragraph 1.36, under the heading of “Training”. Remember, we can put all the policies and procedures in place and spend all the money and do all the planning, but if we don't train people on how to actually do what they're supposed to do, it's a moot point. On this important subject, the Auditor General found that “fewer than 20 percent of Health Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada employees received the training. At the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 34 percent of employees received the required training.”

I want to note that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency all but took a bow when you opened up your remarks here today.

I want to hear from you deputies, because we're relying on you to be responsible for a whole lot of things. What could be simpler than making sure that something that is mandatory actually happens? This is something that's mandatory, and we're seeing 20% and 34% compliance. How is that possible? How can there be such an overlooking of mandatory requirements? It makes me wonder, if you're not ensuring that mandatory things are being done, what assurance do I have that things that aren't mandatory, but may be preferred or recommended, are even looked at? I want to hear from you deputies of those three departments I've just mentioned about the abysmal numbers and how it is that you can have a mandatory requirement that seems to be completely ignored. How is that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Let's begin with Mr. Kennedy.

[Simon Kennedy]

I'll just start by indicating that we agree with the Auditor General's finding. We're working to put that in place and to have regular updates to the management table about the progress we're making.

Just to give you a little bit of context—and not to take away from the finding and our commitment to do better—I'll say that in the past, because of the size of the organization and for a variety of reasons, we have tried to target the focus of our training efforts and the scrutiny to those who are maybe in greater positions of influence, where the risk of fraud and the risk of values and ethics breaches are higher. For example, while the overall figure for our department is 20-something per cent, it's much higher for those who have signing authority and for managers. I don't have the figure immediately in front of me, but it's kind of in the 70%-or-higher range. We want to make sure that anybody who is in a position to make a managerial decision or to sign something for which funds are at stake.... That has typically been where we have tried to ensure that there is complete coverage.

The second thing is that, as a regulatory organization, we have a number of areas that present a higher risk because we have people making approval decisions on drugs or making regulatory decisions that affect industry. In those areas, we actually have specialized training and requirements for those employees, and the requirements are actually quite a bit higher than what they would be for a regular public servant.

All that is just to emphasize that we do take this very seriously. As an organization, we try to identify areas in which there's a particular risk because someone's dealing with a company, and they could be influenced. We have specialized requirements there. Then, for the management team, we insist on much greater adherence. It has been a challenge in the past. Given that we have a churn of at least 600 employees year, it has been a bit of a challenge to try to keep the training current. However, as I've noted, we certainly support the recommendation, and we're going to be working to try to follow up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Unfortunately, our time is up.

I don't want the other two to think that they didn't get an opportunity to answer the question that Mr. Christopherson posed, so on Thursday when we pick this up, we may pick up with the tail end of Mr. Christopherson's question to Mr. Glover and then to Ms. Lemay. Then we will go into our first round again beginning on Thursday.

I want to thank all departments. It's difficult when we have six, and everyone wants to explain. It's hard to get through. We realize that, but we'll have two hours on Thursday.

Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.