Public Accounts Committee on May 19th, 2020

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to set aside the incredible resumé and the extensive public service that Ms. Hogan has provided us and raise the concern that the NDP has raised in the past about the process for hiring officers of Parliament. I want to go on the record. Let's remember that officers of Parliament are independent and work on behalf of Parliament. They're hired by Parliament and accountable to all parliamentarians, and essentially they can be fired only by Parliament, but this is certainly not how it works.

If we look at the current hiring process, it technically meets the law, in that the House must give final approval with a vote. However, it's ultimately the government that does the entire hiring process, only letting other leaders know what its intentions are. This means that the government ultimately chooses who our officers of Parliament will be. In the immediate case, we're certainly confident in the abilities of the candidate for Auditor General, but in the recent past, we have seen some botched appointments and attempts at partisan appointments, all of which could have been avoided with real, meaningful consultation with parliamentarians.

Other jurisdictions in Canada and within the Commonwealth select their officers of Parliament through a special or standing committee. They set the hiring criteria, review the resumés, conduct the interviews and submit a recommendation for nomination. This process recognizes the independence of Parliament and the need for a non-partisan process for selecting independent, non-partisan officers of Parliament.

We've already had an issue where the Auditor General must go hat in hand to the government departments it has to audit. We need to fix this, but we also need to have a serious conversation about the role or lack of role that Parliament has in selecting its own officers of Parliament, and not just leave it up to the government of the day.

Ms. Hogan, are you aware of any consultations that happened with other parties in Parliament about your selection process? Did you have any conversations with members of other parties in Parliament during this process?

[Karen Hogan]

As I mentioned previously, I applied for this position through the Governor in Council website. I was invited—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to note that I cannot hear her.

[Karen Hogan]

My microphone is unmuted. Can you hear me now, Mr. Green?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I believe that your microphone is probably on French.

[Karen Hogan]

Sorry, I was on the floor feed. You're correct. There are a lot of buttons to push before I begin to speak. I unmuted and hadn't returned to the English feed.

I applied through the Governor in Council website and then was invited to an interview. The panel was made up of six individuals. I provided references. Then I was informed that I would pass to the next stage of this process, which was psychometric testing, and I went through all of that.

This is an important role, and when I applied for this position, I expected that the process would be a demanding one. After going through all of that, I felt that it was. It was demanding. I answered and interacted in any step of the process when I was asked to do so.

I only ever spoke with individuals from the Privy Council Office until I received a call from the minister informing me that I would be the candidate. He then let me know that the consultation process would take place. Unfortunately, I did not know the magnitude or what that would entail until I was informed that the certificate of nomination was being tabled in the House.

I can't really comment on the process, but I can comment on what I lived through, and that was my experience.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I just want to go on the record and state that it's really not about your qualifications; you are very well qualified. It's about the principle of the process and how we select agents and officers of the House.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green.

We're now going to move over to Mr. Uppal.

Sir, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

I would also like to congratulate you, Ms. Hogan, for being considered for this very important position.

In answering a number of questions today, you mentioned, several times, resource constraints. You said that you don't have the numbers right now of what you would need and what you would like for additional funding. Considering that you or at least your office has made requests for funding at least a few times and those requests were not fully agreed upon or provided, can you, with the current funding you have, do the fulsome audit of the COVID spending and the investing in Canada spending that you've been asked to do?

[Karen Hogan]

With the current funding that we have, we've unfortunately had to make the difficult decision to delay and defer audits in order to make sure that we can allocate the right amount of resources to deal with investing in Canada and COVID-19. The budget requests that we've put in over the last couple of years were obviously based on our assessment of our needs at that time, and needs evolve. As new mandates are added and as large audits like those two are put in front of us, those needs might also continue to evolve. That's why it's very difficult for me to tell you what that number might look like, but in order to take care of those two big audits, we will have to let other things go, absolutely.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

Other audits that you would normally be doing are being delayed or possibly cancelled. Can you give us an idea of what types of audits or which ones you are not able to do at this time, because you have to put your current resources towards the COVID spending audits or the investing in Canada audits?

[Karen Hogan]

Unfortunately, I didn't bring a list of what we had on the horizon that we're delaying or forgoing, as you say. I do know there were a few—I don't think I have them all written down—that were under the Auditor General's umbrella and some under the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development's umbrella that will just be a little late, hopefully, because they are well under way.

When we look to the future, we have an excellent process to figure out what audits we might want to do, but it's just a little too early to tell you what those might be, given we're not sure how long it will take us to get through COVID-19 spending. We would imagine it will be more than one cycle or many audits, or it might take some time for us to get through that in the right fashion.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you. It definitely underscores the need for additional funding for your office.

You had mentioned that you have about 575 people who work in that office. I would imagine right now most of them are working from home. We had also learned at a previous committee meeting that your office works on an older DOS system. How is that working with employees being at home? Is that working? Is this something you can continue with? Is that something you would hope to change very soon?

[Karen Hogan]

Every single one of our employees across the entire country is working remotely. We have four regional offices across the entire country, as well as individuals here in Ottawa, and everyone is working remotely. Luckily, we have VPN connections and great bandwidth in order for us to be able to do what we can do every day.

As you mentioned, at a previous meeting, Monsieur Ricard commented on a system that we had that uses F-function keys, very similar to a DOS system. I'm very happy to report that I think before the end of the month, we will have transitioned off of that system and will be in a different world. It doesn't mean that we've jumped over the incredible hurdle of all the IT work that we need to focus on, as well as other federal organizations. The pandemic is just making everyone more aware of our need and dependence on those very important tools to continue to deliver on our mandate and support your committee.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you.

What steps could you take, or do you think you would take, to ensure that Canadians have a better understanding of what the Auditor General does and also the work that the Auditor General has been doing, possibly past audits that you've done or audits that are coming up, for them to kind of understand and also to be more aware of?

[Karen Hogan]

I believe that our past precedent of creating long-form audit reports that are very technical is excellent for technical subject matter experts to help refine service and program delivery to Canadians.

As I mentioned earlier, I would love to approach and explore a way to reach out to Canadians in different ways. Not everyone wants to read a long report. There is video we can do and infographics. There are so many ways that our communications can be adapted to Canadians and the way they digest information. I would really like to start exploring that going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hogan and Mr. Uppal.

We're now going to turn it over to Mr. Longfield.

Sir, the floor is your for five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this great discussion we're having this morning. I want to drill down on a couple of things.

You mentioned the order in council process, which is a standard process that's now being used by our government to make these types of decisions independently until they come to the point we are at today, where politicians are asking you questions.

The order in council process itself is something that has been expanded. Is that something you can comment on in terms of how the Auditor General's department would look at how government separates political from non-political decision-making?

[Karen Hogan]

Obviously for a legislative auditor and even more importantly, should I become Auditor General of Canada, it is not my role to comment on policy choices or decisions made by a government. I think we can all agree that some decisions are well received, some are not so well received and some are divisive.

It is a responsibility of the Auditor General to look at how departments comply with their policies and whether they report comprehensively on their decisions in an open and transparent manner.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Great. Thank you.

With regard to the audits that were scheduled for the fall—on the procurement of IT, the follow-up on rail safety, the national shipbuilding strategy and the Canada child benefit—it sounds today as though those are being delayed, then, since you are moving forward with audits on infrastructure and on COVID-19, the fisheries, and possibly oil and gas.

Am I reading that situation correctly?

[Karen Hogan]

Thank you for coming up with that list of four audits. I thought I had it at my fingertips, and unfortunately I didn't.

Those are the four that are currently under way, the four that were expected to be tabled in the fall of 2020, and that will be delayed, likely until sometime into 2021, so they will not stop. We all had to adjust for, obviously, physical distancing and letting all the departments settle in and get back up to speed, but those will not be pushed aside. They will simply be delayed and then we will not start other audits until we can make sure that we've properly resourced the investing in Canada program and the COVID-19 spending audits.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Great. Thank you.

Those are departmental decisions, operational decisions. If I'm looking at the audit of COVID-19, some of what will come through will come through only at the end of this coming tax season. I'm thinking of some of the emergency benefits that will get sorted once we get the tax returns of the individuals who have applied for and received benefits to see whether they were getting other income at the same time as they were receiving this emergency funding.

In terms of timing and looking at when the effects will actually be able to be audited, is that also something you're considering in your department, working with CRA officials or with finance department officials? How does that work?

[Karen Hogan]

As would be the case for us with any audit, engaging with the deputy minister and officials within a department will be critical to making sure that we have a good understanding of the business, how it's running and how the programs and services are being delivered, so that we can do our testing at the appropriate time and to the right extent.

While I haven't been involved in any of those conversations with individual departments so far during the planning of these audits, I would trust that our auditors are doing as they normally would do, which is following due process and ensuring that our audit is properly planned and executed.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's great, because there could be political pressure to say, “We need the audit now” but in reality, the timing might be more appropriate when all the information is in.

Also with regard to the performance audits, you've already said how COVID-19 is having an impact on your staff, so as you're doing performance audits against the targets the departments have had, is there now going to be an additional factor, since we have had to perform at a distance, using different ways and processes?