Public Accounts Committee on March 11th, 2021

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to the Auditor General for appearing. I am glad to see that you have received the funding, and if our committee and I had a little part in that, I'm glad to have supported it.

With respect to the process, I'm glad, Auditor General, that you seem open to the idea of maybe changing the process a bit. A lot of the process was these grand unveilings, where we literally would be using typewriters to come up with hundreds of pages and then presenting them to the committee. That's not really the way the world works anymore and, quite frankly, it reduces the effectiveness of the recommendations if they are two or three years later....

I would like to get her comment. Maybe she can expand on how the committee could work with that. I would be fully supportive of the idea of having interim, temporary or smaller reports that come to the committee more often, so that we can actually get back and fix these things, right? What I see is a pattern here, whether we're talking about first nations and indigenous water clarity, shipbuilding, the Phoenix debacle in digital services, or even things we haven't contemplated yet, such as vaccine procurement. We see these failures, but we don't get to them in time to change the results. We hear about process updates, but I don't see any results coming from that.

Maybe the Auditor General could comment on how we could work with her to actually make a change, as opposed to just having processes that change, and actually get results for the Canadian people.

[Karen Hogan]

Thank you very much for that question. I feel like you have been sitting with me when I talk to all the people in our office.

We have to look at the process, absolutely, and we need to help improve that, but we should keep our eye on the outcomes. A part of how I hope to accomplish that is by breaking down some of the audits. I think you're going to start seeing that. We'll be able to have a dialogue about how we want to approach that together so that you can study a subject appropriately.

I'm going to use two examples, one being CERB. We're going to table the first part of our CERB audit in a few days, in about 14 days, actually. It won't cover the whole program. It is actually meant to identify what's going on now and to help feed the department to deal with looking at payments in the next round.

You mentioned vaccines. That's another one that we're looking at breaking down into more manageable pieces. I guess, then, the decision might be, does the committee want to study the bits and pieces or wait to study the entire program or subject?

For vaccines, we are going to try to target in and look at the contracting of those in order to give the Public Health Agency some time to deal with rollout, but then our intention is to look at approval and rollout to the provinces. We're going to try to break it up. I really think it's about us having a good dialogue on what the best way might be as to how to study that going forward.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Yes. I would not hold myself out to speak out in front of the entire committee, but for my part, I want to see the bits and pieces. We can have the big longer-term reports as well, but the world just moves so quickly these days. In my days in the private sector, you had to be agile and quick and get those reports done.

With respect to the vaccines, can you disclose whether we'll be hearing from you in the near future with respect to the vaccine procurement or when we might be hearing from you? Is that something you can disclose at this point?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm very happy that we're all willing to try something new, because I think that's what we should do. I'm here for 10 years to help serve Parliament, and I want to make sure that I'm meeting your needs. It's definitely something I want to engage in with all of you.

From a vaccine perspective, there will be nothing tabled in March. We are in a very good dialogue with the departments about how best to structure that. I'm also in a dialogue with the Auditors General in the provinces to see whether or not we could coordinate the timing of audits, because federally I can only go so far on the whole vaccination issue. Then it becomes a provincial matter. I'm having a dialogue with my provincial counterparts to see if they would like to time an audit that they could do afterwards, so that the whole vaccination picture is looked at, from approval to shot in the arm.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

How much time do I have left, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

You have one and a half minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Perfect, thanks very much. I'm not nearly as good at timing as Mr. Green.

The next question I'd like to follow up on is with regard to the digital side relating to what we were talking about. I think this will be key for our future going forward, and you're seeing the CRA's inability to talk to other departments. We also saw the Phoenix debacle.

Could you talk where we are more generally? Is there a digital strategy that you're comfortable with? What have you seen in that, and is it something you'll be looking at in the coming year?

[Karen Hogan]

The chief information officer of Canada has a digital strategy; the federal government has a digitization strategy, and I think everyone's going on that journey. The pandemic has forced a lot of us to take steps faster than we would have done. I think that's a positive, and we need to keep building on that.

We talk a lot about modernizing IT. We have to do it ourselves, as well as the federal government, and so we do have a few audits that we're targeting in the future. We looking at doing a cybersecurity audit. We're trying to figure out all of the security around that, so there will be a cybersecurity audit coming in the future.

I encourage you to take a look at our website. One of the things that I've tried to do is to get more than one year of planned audit work on there. Bearing in mind that it might change and move, ebb and flow, as we figure out the right timing, but there should be two years there, and you'll be able to see that far out. That said, cybersecurity and IT are definitely going to be things at the forefront of our minds as we go forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I have one quick last comment, Chair.

I'll just put on the record quickly that I would love to hear as soon as possible on the vaccinations.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lawrence.

We will now go to Ms. Yip for six minutes.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan, to you and office for all the hard work you've done in delivering these reports.

Congratulations to Mr. DeMarco on his new appointment.

In your answer to Mr. Lawrence about breaking down the reports into smaller bits, I gather that this was part of your departmental plan.

I'm wondering if you could just elaborate on the new vision and mission that you've outlined in that plan and how it will be used to improve the operations at the OAG and guide future audit work.

[Karen Hogan]

I worked very hard with my executive team, after lots of consultations and discussions with all of our people across the office, to make sure that our vision spoke to people.

I think it addresses what I've been telling this committee for a while, that I want to modernize not just our processes but also how we work and how we interact, and that's why breaking down some of the audits into smaller pieces is one of those things we have to see working to see how it goes.

It also includes how we communicate. Again, I encourage you to go to our website. We just posted an infographic about rail safety that accompanies the audit report. We want to see how that is digested and if individuals like it and find that it's a meaningful way to understand the report.

Our new vision is to bring together people, expertise and technology, and we see that as including both the people within our office and the people and entities we audit. We see that as bringing together our expertise and the expertise in the public service in the programs that we audit and in all of the initiatives that they put forward and in technology. I think not only do we have to modernize and use technology in a better way, so does the federal public service.

There are so many opportunities with new technologies to get a better handle on data and be more informed, and we need to take that journey with the government so that we can provide better value-added to our audit.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I'm hoping to see more of the infographics and simpler language so that Canadians across the country can understand some of the reports and recommendations.

Parliamentary committees have reviewed 26% of the reports that were presented in 2019-20 compared with 58% in the previous year. I can understand why only 26 reports were reviewed, partly because of the fall federal election and the pandemic.

What happens to the reports that are not reviewed?

[Karen Hogan]

Coming up with that percentage is a little complicated, so I want to talk about a few things that are in it. It includes all the reports that we will table in the House.

A few years ago we started to table all of our special examinations of Crown corporations so that they would be available if a parliamentary committee wanted to study them. They are available publicly on every Crown's website, but we wanted them to be in one place for Parliament. Those are not often studied, and we considered that. They have been discussed with the board of directors of the Crown corporations. They have an action plan and their internal audit shops and their boards of directors will follow up with the corporations taking those actions. While these examinations they may not be studied in Parliament, they are studied and looked at.

In the case of many of the audit reports, when we issued our results, it looked as if they hadn't been reviewed, as I mentioned in my opening statement; but they were reviewed by the public accounts committee.

There are reports of the commissioner that are referred to the environment committee that are not always studied there. That's where I would encourage any committee across Parliament to study any of our reports. We are always happy to talk about our work, and it doesn't necessarily always have to be studied by the committee that refers to them.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

If it's not studied by a committee, is there any follow-up on the recommendations? Is there any accountability to the organizations that you're studying? Because your reports are so valuable and so much hard work goes into them, I want to make sure that something comes of them.

[Karen Hogan]

Thank you very much.

I agree with you. We spend a lot of time, and so do the departments and entities we audit, and we want to make sure that we make a change that improves programs in the lives of Canadians.

We have a few options, and we follow them up. For example, we have this new product that I mentioned that we're going to be putting together that will look at certain measures in some of our audits. It's going to be more of an electronic product than a paper product. We're hoping that we'll be able to add some pressure to the departments to recognize that we might come in more regularly to start doing that quick follow-up. We want to make it publicly available so that everyone can see what's going on. As I mentioned earlier, we will always follow up on important topics in the larger, more comprehensive way.

The internal audit areas within departments and agencies should be following up on the recommendations that come from our financial and our performance audits, and their departmental audit committees should be asking those questions as well.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Madam Chair, do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

You are at six minutes exactly, so it's great timing.

Thank you so much, Ms. Yip.

We will move on to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Hogan, I am trying to verify what had already been established about a House motion, tabled in April 2020, that asked you to conduct an audit of emergency actions taken in response to COVID-19. A report on the findings must also be filed by June 1, 2021. Of course, a House order called for the government to take the necessary steps to ensure that your office had sufficient resources to do the work.

In our previous meetings, you told us that it was not easy, in the context of COVID-19, to get information from certain departments.

Will you be able to complete COVID-19 reporting by June 1, 2021?

[Karen Hogan]

The answer is not simple, but I will try to answer your question in a satisfactory manner.

To address the motion, we would have to look at all the programs that the government has put in place in response to the pandemic. As I mentioned before, it is almost impossible to meet this request. I would work solely on that for several years.

So we decided to look at programs that are somewhat broader, based on certain risks or on discussions with departments. We will be tabling four reports in March, before the June 1 deadline.

These reports will be a beginning of a response to the motion. The reality is that we will continue for years to come to review programs related to the government's response to the pandemic. We will be tabling further reports later this year and in 2022. We will continue this work for several years.

We are unable to fully respond to the requests made in this motion by June 1.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

We have been pushing for you to receive your funding. It is my understanding that there is a technology transition that needs to happen now and that you will be hiring additional staff.

What can the committee do, Ms. Hogan, to further assist you?

[Karen Hogan]

It would be to study our reports and have a little patience.

We're going to get our funding, and we've already hired almost 100 people this year. It's not just new employees, because you have to factor in the usual staff turnover. We are in the process of onboarding them and training them. This will allow us to increase capacity.

Along with that, we are trying to address our technology shortcomings. We have a good plan to correct that, and the money will be spent shortly to buy systems. However, it's not just having systems, you also have to have individuals to implement them.

There is a tremendous amount of activity within our organization right now to increase capacity for our audits.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

I understand that in order to prepare your reports, you need to have data, and that data comes from the different departments.

How is the communication going? Are you getting responses according to the timeline that you set? Is the communication meeting your expectations?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes and no. Honestly, it depends on the departments and how committed they are to the pandemic response. There are certainly some delays in getting information out.

As I mentioned earlier, there are only 24 hours in a day, and a lot of people in the departments are very busy. From time to time, audits that we would like to complete have to be pushed back. It's not a big problem right now, but it does require us to be flexible and sometimes replace those audits with others on different topics.