I want to thank the Auditor General and I want to thank the departments for their work. We have a number of deputy ministers and staff here. They do incredible work across the board through our federal government.
I want to stress the importance of accountability and transparency. If there's one thing that I hear a lot from constituents and from Canadians who email or call my office or speak to me in person, it's that they want to make sure that our public dollars are being treated with the utmost accountability and transparency. There are some concerns I have, but I want to comment first on some of the issues around data.
When I read things in an Auditor General's report, such as the example of having company names stored differently in a system, that is unacceptable. That is the most basic of checks that your system should be able to perform on a routine basis. That is a quick name search that identifies similar names within a company, that looks at the address, or that is able to use other factors to flag an issue when you have multiple entries for the same company or firm.
Ultimately, this leads to severe inaccuracies. I don't have the facts, but that could potentially mean that there is contract splitting, by using different company names. That is a simple check that should be taken care of. I won't even bother asking the question because it's too simple of a problem, in my mind.
I want to go on to the next piece, which is around allegations of fraud. Allegations of fraud need to be taken with the utmost seriousness. When somebody from within the public service, or even from outside, decides to step up and make that allegation, it needs to be treated properly. Based on what the Auditor General has written, there's a lot of policy in place, but it's not clear if the issue is being dealt with properly through documentation and logs.
What has happened since the Auditor General raised these concerns? I know that a number of departments are working through making changes. Can I get an update? Does the Auditor General have a sense of where one of the departments might be making good progress and about whether that could be an example for others?