Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
It's a real pleasure to be here again today.
As Mr. Christopherson did, I want to give a shout-out to all the former members of the PACP committee, including the chairs. You've heard David Christopherson, Shawn Murphy and Dean Allison. All of them brought something new to our committee, and they certainly did a great job in chairing. I know, Madam Chair, that you will also, just by the way you've conducted yourself so far.
I want to thank Lesley Burns and Ms. Bellringer for the hour previous. I think that each one of the committee members recognized the value of CAAF and what they bring to the committee, so I'm pleased that the committee has asked to meet with them again. That was part of what I was going to bring today.
To the new members of the committee, I would like to introduce myself a little bit. I'm Kevin Sorenson. I served as a member of Parliament for 19 years. I served on a number of committees, but I did chair the foreign affairs committee. I chaired the Afghanistan mission. I chaired public safety and national security. I served as minister of state for finance. Then in the last four years, I served on the public accounts committee.
I tell you this not to bring attention to what I have accomplished or haven't accomplished, but rather to say that in the 15 years before becoming a member of the public accounts committee, in 15 years serving in all those capacities, I had very little idea as to what the public accounts committee was all about. I understood they were to give transparency and accountability to government, but I did not understand the intricacies and the issues that the committee would be looking at. I knew they worked with the Auditor General, but I wasn't certain exactly how.
In our first meeting, I recall meeting with CAAF. Shawn Murphy was there. I thought, why do I, as a Conservative member, want to sit and listen to this former Liberal chair on CAAF? Did CAAF drink the Kool-Aid here? Are they just going along with the old government? I found out again how wrong I was.
I knew Shawn as a strong debater in the House of Commons, but I didn't really know him as the chair of the committee. When I sat down and looked across, I saw David Christopherson there. I said, “What are the chances that we will have a non-partisan committee with Christopherson there?” That was because he was a powerful debater in the House of Commons.
But let me tell you again that these individuals were key—as were the Liberals, like Madame Mendès—in making it very simple for me as a chair to carry on in a non-partisan way. That is exactly what your committee should be doing. I want to encourage you to continue to use CAAF, and to do everything you can to remain non-partisan.
Shawn has mentioned some of this. The PACP committee is not responsible for the policy directives that a government brings. Every party will have a different policy. Our focus must be on how departments carry out that policy. How do they bring about a policy that the government directive...that their mandate has been? As Shawn said, we are looking at the administrative roles.
When it comes down to debate in the House of Commons or to an election, each one of you, as members of the committee, will be able to debate and question the policy that the other government has. Regardless of whether we agree with it or disagree with it, we expect that, in the liberal democracy that we have, a government department can carry out the mandate given to it by the government. If they can't, if they stall policy, if they refuse in some way, as in some third world countries, to bring about the government's policy, then we have a very deep problem. Then PACP becomes very important, as we already are.
Just quickly on that, I remember in our PACP, Meg Hillier of the British Parliament said that she loves to sit back in her chair, close her eyes and say, “Which party brought that question?”
I think CAAF mentioned the same. You should be able to listen to the questions. They are asked in a non-partisan way. They don't give a big background to the questions, slamming governments. They are simply looking at the departments. That is the goal.
I also want to say that each individual has talked about the uniqueness of this committee. It is so unique. As far as I know, it's the only committee that has an action plan for follow-up. Dillan and Angela are a big part of that and are very important in bringing that about. We must follow up for exactly the reasons that Lesley said. You do it with your teenage children. You do it with other places in business where you have [Technical difficulty—Editor]. It's imperative that you do it here. Transparency and accountability of the departments is exactly what it's about.
You are a member of a committee that has an opportunity to understand the whole of government. You are a member of a committee that will understand a little bit about every department that the AG studies. If you are a first-time member of Parliament, I think you have the best orientation possible when you serve on the public accounts committee, because you will learn a little bit about each department. Good for you.
I think you will be given a copy of the Public Accounts of Canada. They'll sit on your bookshelf. They take up about two feet of bookshelf space. For most people, when you open them up, your eyes glaze over and you flip through them very quickly. When you get to understand the public accounts.... I know how to read financial statements. CAAF comes in and they bring in a former member of the Auditor General's department and they go through each book and each item. You will be able to tell how many iPhones were lost by government or how many iPhones members of Parliament lost, where the waste is in government, what they're paying for some of the resources that they have. Good for you for recognizing that you go back to CAAF and you get these types of briefings, because it will help you do your job.
I want to quickly close with this. Again, as has been mentioned, Chair, you are vital to the functioning of a good committee. Over the four years that I served, a number of times we would hear at the last moment that a department was bringing in an assistant to the deputy, or someone way down the line to come and take the deputy minister's place in Parliament. I remember sitting at home once, because I had broken my shoulder, and I watched Alexandra Mendès when a department came and it wasn't the deputy minister they promised. It was someone else. She refused to open the meeting.
We expect the accountable deputy minister to be there. He is the deputy minister. He is the accounting officer for that department. That is absolutely key. There are occasions where they will be unable to be there, because of a death in the family or other extenuating circumstances. The committee may be asked if they will take someone else and we have met, but typically, this committee gets the answers from the one who is accountable. That's the deputy minister.
Mr. Christopherson talked about the other opportunities you will have through CCPAC and the Commonwealth PAC. These are good, although with COVID on, I'm not certain how many of them you will be able to travel to.
Let me say that you are a very important committee in Parliament, especially in a minority. In a minority Parliament, you become more important than ever to accountability and transparency. I will cut some of my comments on that out.
We drew up a legacy report of what we accomplished and what we wished we had accomplished. Plan on being accountable as a committee to doing those types of things.
One of the measures we brought forward was that we asked CAAF to do a report card on the conduct of our committee. How were we functioning? Were we missing out in this area? We asked them to give us quarterly or maybe semi-annual reports as to how we could better ourselves as a committee. It's very positive. It's important to do things like that, so you don't just stay in the rut that you might find yourself getting into. They are a non-partisan group that will give a fair assessment as to the measurement of how a committee is responding.
Also, Chair, there will be times when you will have to call into order when someone begins to do it. Build a relationship with your committee. Build up respect, so that they know you are not a homer for your party, but that they can count on you. I think that's part of what we did.
I think I'm going to leave it at that. I want to thank the committee for the job that they will do and for the amount that they will learn in doing this.
Thank you, Chair.