Mr. Perron.
Evidence of meeting #90 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 services.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #90 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 services.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I could start, and maybe Dr. Plante could complement it further.
There are a number of programs and different ways to collect information. For example, the children's oral health initiative depends on the work that is done in each of the 200 communities, in day-to-day services, to record the service provided, the oral health of the child, and a measurement of the progression in terms of the quality of the oral health. This requires collaboration to make sure that the data collected in northern Manitoba will be consistent with the data collected in northern Quebec.
4:05 p.m.
Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We have been doing it all the time in order to try to improve, but there is a challenge to get this data and analyze it at a national level. This is what the Auditor General revealed in the report, that it's not something that's conclusive. There's more work to be done there.
Second, we have many programs, and we need to be able to link this data together. The working group is made up of people from the various programs. It's to try to harmonize the way they collect the data and organize the data. It's to provide training and also to use external experts to advise us. In the introductory remarks, we talked a little about the expert group, which is independent. They give us guidance on how we can make this happen. This working group is charged with implementing these measures.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay. Thank you.
Deputy or Auditor General, does every department have one of these, or is it unique to you to have a data improvement strategy working group—in other words, a group that is actually struck for the sole purpose of dealing with the issue of poor data management and analysis?
4:05 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I cannot talk for all of the departments. I'm not sure of this. I think all departments have a data strategy for sure.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You're not sure. Okay that's fine.
Auditor General, do you know, sir?
4:05 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
No, I don't know whether all departments have it. Obviously, we've seen issues in a number of departments with data quality. I suspect it's not all departments, but I don't know that for sure.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay.
On my other question, what I'd like is the actual from you, Deputy, and then, AG, on whether that meets what you think should be happening.
We don't talk a lot about internal audit committees, and yet I think they play a bigger role than we're acknowledging. Would they be responsible for the issue of data management, Deputy?
4:05 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
No. The internal audit committee works with us and advises the deputy minister on the quality of the audit that we produce, on the risk management of our audits, and which audits we do. They will advise us on the quality of those audits, on what we should identify as risks, where we should go, and what we should address, but they will not necessarily be part of the working groups.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay.
What surprises me, and it happens over and over in AG reports, and it's in here again—I can dig it out if you want—is that there's analysis saying that the planning wasn't done. They weren't following up on these things, strategic analysis, and it seems to me that the in-house audit committee ought to be doing some of that.
If we have an in-house audit committee and they're doing their job, how is it that we can get through them and still have so many problems that the national Auditor General then finds?
4:05 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
The department has to do its job. The audit committee cannot do the job of the department, so we have to do it ourselves. We also have to do it with our partners. We have to find efficient and sustainable ways of collecting and analyzing that data. This is our responsibility. We recognize it, and as we have said, we're developing plans and hope that we will be able to—
4:05 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
No. Very quickly, maybe I'll give the Auditor General a chance to comment. I'll come back to this again when I get another round of questions, but that was a bit cursory for me. I'm looking for a little more, Deputy, in the next round.
Auditor General.
4:05 p.m.
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I think there is a role for internal audit committees to play in this. As the deputy said, dealing with and fixing these issues is obviously the responsibility of the departments, but I think there would be a role for audit committees to look at, for example, the different audits that we've done.
As the question indicated, in a number of our audits we have talked about the problems with data quality in departments. I think audit committees should be aware of those types of systemic issues that we bring up, and they should ask the departments they're involved in how we know whether the data in the department is being managed in a way that is of sufficient quality so that the department doesn't end up with data quality issues showing up in an Auditor General's report.
It is definitely the responsibility of the department to fix the issues, but I think there is an oversight and challenge role for internal audit committees to make sure that departments are paying attention to these types of issues.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Kevin Sorenson
Thank you, Mr. Ferguson and Mr. Christopherson.
We'll now move to Mr. Chen please.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Oral health is so important. We all know that. I know that. I recently had a filling that went bad, and it was not good. It was painful, but I won't get into the details of that.
I'm lucky that I have access to any number of dentists in Ottawa and Toronto. I have a good insurance plan. But we know, and it is especially important, that there are many communities and many individuals in this country who are disadvantaged and marginalized and do not have access to proper services. That is why it's so important for us to ensure that indigenous children, in particular, have proper oral health.
It's no secret that the oral health of Inuit and first nation children is especially poor. I heard the Auditor General say very clearly in his earlier remarks on the work of the department that it was not focusing on closing the gap. What we need to do is very much remember that there is a gap, and it is our responsibility to close that gap, because there are children who do not have access to these services.
Oral health is so important, because it's linked to general health outcomes. It's linked to their ability to receive a proper education. It's linked to their personal sense of well-being and confidence. When there is poor oral health, there are poor outcomes for children.
In the Auditor General's report on page 3, paragraph 4.9, it states that $5.4 million was allocated by the federal government in 2014-15 for the children's oral health initiative, but in 2016, Health Canada found that only 238 out of 452 eligible communities received services.
Of course, I'm going to go to the negative and ask, why didn't 214 communities receive any services? Why was that the case?
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
We go with the resources we have. With the funding we have received under budget 2017, we expect to increase the number of communities with access to COHI by more than 100. That's something that would help oral health.
However, don't forget that all of those communities still have access to NIHB services. If they want to have access to a dentist, if they need access to an oral health specialist, they do have that access. It's not that communities are not covered by any kinds of oral health services; that's not necessarily the case. This is more for the community approach that we described before, where we helped to actually do some prevention work in terms of oral health in communities. That's something that we were doing with the $5 million, as you mentioned, but with the budgetary increase that we received, we hope to be able to expand this. We would expand it in terms of numbers of communities who have access to it, and potentially also the age of the people who would have access to the service.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Are you saying that with the budget increases that were passed, there will be an increase in the number of communities that are served?
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Yes, in 2017.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
I think it's zero to seven.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
What is the department looking at in terms of increasing the age range of children who are—
4:10 p.m.
Deputy Minister, Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
It's zero to 11. It may vary from place to place, but it is something that we're looking at.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Can you talk about the importance of that? When we are dealing with indigenous communities, it's very important for us to ensure that the communities are involved—