Evidence of meeting #1 for Public Accounts in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was clerk.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Michel Marcotte
Dillan Theckedath  Committee Researcher

11:45 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Mr. Sorbara.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

Let me go back to the clerk.

What would the 48 hours' notice do logistically for the reports, and what would the implications of that be?

11:45 a.m.

The Clerk

Basically, it ensures that you would have the action plan at least 48 hours before a meeting with, let's say, the Department of Industry. You have 48 hours to go through it, so you're ready when they appear. When they say something, you can go back and say, “Hey, in your action plan, you are saying that.”

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Mr. Theckedath.

11:50 a.m.

Committee Researcher

Dillan Theckedath

To follow up on Michel's point, in the interests of comprehensiveness and to answer your question, it is important to have these at the meeting. Generally, the members of the committee have the action plans, which are a more concrete explanation and “go forward” with regard to the way they are going to address the recommendations of the Auditor General.

In very complex audits that are pan-governmental and that may involve multiple departments, the coordinating efforts required to ensure that everybody is playing from the same rule book and that everybody is going to integrate their responses and actions.... Sometimes, depending on when the report is done, there is still a lot of negotiating between the audited entity and the Auditor General. That can happen up until a report is finalized, packaged and tabled in the House. Sometimes those things require more time for certain departments, and in certain cases to provide a proper action plan.

It's a very good thing to have them at the meeting, absolutely, but there may be an occasion when a department may not have been able to be as thorough with regard to preparing an action plan.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Francesco Sorbara Liberal Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON

I thank the clerk and the analyst for that answer. I will be voting no on this amendment. I will stick to the motion that we had before.

The 48 hours sounds like a panacea to the world. It's not. I think that, with regard to co-operation and coordination within departments, we need to give them some flexibility. I'm assuming that in the prior incarnation of this committee, members of Parliament in all parties received the reports in the time necessary to review them, whether it was 24 hours in advance or otherwise.

I do not support this amendment.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Mr. Kelly.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

Pat Kelly Conservative Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB

My apologies, Mr. Chair, for intervening twice on one motion. The point of having the motion changed from an expectation to a requirement is still valid, but in reality I would hope we get them a lot more than 48 hours ahead anyway.

As I said, these audits are tabled. We don't usually get around to studying a particular report until many weeks after it has been tabled. In fact, by the time the Auditor General has even tabled the report, the department already knows what's coming and is already working on these things, and it is under pressure to demonstrate progress.

The panacea is actually that we have a comprehensive, coordinated report well ahead of the meeting—more than 48 hours. Not even having a requirement in the motion, however, is, I think, the weakness that the mover of the motion has identified.

I would support it for that reason, then; so that nobody could come to a committee and say they didn't have to respond.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Mr. Green.

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Are there occasions when it might be the case that they're presented at the actual meeting?

11:50 a.m.

Committee Researcher

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I couldn't fathom a situation, given the work we're trying to do, in which we would not want to have a report in advance, in order to read prior to asking questions.

I fully support the 48 hours. I think it's in order and quite right to have the ability to review in advance of the meeting a document on which you're going to have a presentation.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

My understanding from the analyst is that sometimes they provide it on the day; sometimes it's after the fact, depending on the coordination.

11:50 a.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Yes, totally, so I fully support this.

11:50 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

If there is no more discussion, I'm going to call the question on the amendment.

Mr. Fergus.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Forgive me, Mr. Chair. I am new to this committee, and as I like to say, I'm a modest man with much to be modest about. I'm trying to figure this out.

I personally don't like having reports dropped on me on the day. If a report were to come to us that was just dropped on us like that, has it been this committee's tradition to say: “Thank you very much for dropping this report. We understand that for whatever reason you just couldn't get it to us earlier. We'll see you in two days”?

11:55 a.m.

Committee Researcher

Dillan Theckedath

Chair, I'll give a bit of context to explain. We've been a bit deficient, perhaps.

The audits are tabled in the House of Commons. The committee agrees to discuss how it will deal with them. Members choose, and we then plan a course of action on which audits will be studied.

Typically, the departments that are to have a hearing here will give an action plan, but the action plan is one thing. There's usually an opening statement as well, and that opening statement almost always addresses each recommendation and how they are going to proceed. The action plans are typically used by the analysts in drafting the report.

The key components, then, are the audit, the testimony at the hearing, and then the action plan. We present it in the draft report along with a recommendation for each OAG recommendation. The committee then gets to debate and discuss it.

The analysts will be taking a look at the action plans a bit more thoroughly. Then the committee adopts the report, it's tabled and the government has 120 days to respond to us. We might give them a longer time, depending on the report.

That is the general sequence of the work.

Then the analysts, as Michel said earlier, follow up. The department says they will fix this bridge by that date. We then examine all the progress reports from that department to make sure that they report that the bridge has been fixed. That's the series of how we work.

The action plan is only one element that the committee will use in its proceedings. The report has already been tabled by the OAG; there will be an opening statement that will be provided, as well as the action plan. All of that comprehensively forms part of the report.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Thank you for that, Dillan.

Just to make sure, you are saying that we frankly, then, don't need this.

11:55 a.m.

Committee Researcher

Dillan Theckedath

No, I would not say that, sir. I did not say that.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

Of course you wouldn't. Let me rephrase that.

11:55 a.m.

Some hon. members

Oh, oh!

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Greg Fergus Liberal Hull—Aylmer, QC

No, that's fine.

February 25th, 2020 / 11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Jean Yip Liberal Scarborough—Agincourt, ON

I seem to recall that last year, sometimes there were last-minute results provided to the action plan, so I am going to vote no.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

We are first going to have the vote on the amendment, which is to add the “48 hours”.

11:55 a.m.

The Clerk

As I understand it, the amendment will be to strike out the words “when feasible” and add after the words “to the committee” the words “48 hours prior to the hearing”.