Public Accounts Committee on March 11th, 2021

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

[Karen Hogan]

I would invite you to look at exhibit 3.2 in our report. The diagram shows that between November 2015 and November 2020, 100 drinking water quality advisories were lifted, leaving 60 at the end of our auditing period. The numbers, however, did fluctuate during that period. That's why I would invite you to look at the numbers. The small chart provides more information if you are interested.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I can certainly see that new advisories were added to the list. If I understood your report correctly, 101 drinking water quality advisories have been lifted since the government promised to take action, but there have been new advisories. As you observed, the numbers did fluctuate.

Is there a direct correlation between these new advisories and the outdated funding formula that is used for indigenous communities?

What will it take for the government to update its formula?

[Karen Hogan]

We looked at long-term drinking water quality advisories during our audit, but there are also short-term advisories on drinking water quality. A long-term advisory is for a period of time of over 365 days. We did, however, see short-term advisories for periods close to 300 days.

We really want to see the government find a long-term solution, rather than pushing the problem back and resorting to stopgap measures. Yes, you do need financing, but you also need a legislative framework. There is an act, but not the supporting regulations. The regulations offer safeguards and measures to bring about real change and enforcement of the act. The regulations are the missing piece.

We saw that long-term plans have been drawn up, but they have been pushed back in order to go ahead with the construction of new water treatment plants. Some plans have been deferred to 2024-25. In some cases, measures have been taken, but in others, there is no long-term plan. We really need an across-the-board solution.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

According to you, or rather your audit, is the best solution still the one that brings the communities on board?

[Karen Hogan]

A good solution for one community is not necessarily the best for all communities. You have to take into account the needs and the challenges of the communities and study the solutions that they propose.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I want to circle back to the topic that I spoke about earlier.

Is it just the regulations that are lacking, or should we be prioritizing initiatives that take into account the communities' needs and skill sets i.e. skills that are available within the communities?

[Karen Hogan]

Both aspects are important.

Regulations offer the same safeguards to all communities in the country. Indigenous communities should also benefit from these safeguards provided for by law or other means. We do, however, need to know what the communities need.

It would also be helpful to train the systems operators. We only looked at public systems, but there are other systems that need skilled workers as well to make sure that the drinking water is safe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

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

We will now move on to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Hello to all our witnesses today.

Welcome to our committee, Ms. Hogan. It's always a pleasure to see you. You are a great witness for the committee, and I would like to congratulate you on the exceptional work you do for Parliament.

In your presentation, you seemed optimistic with regards to the current progressive management approach to technology modernization projects within the public service. I would, however, like to go over a few things with you.

Are you able to confirm right now that there is a type of gentleman's agreement, if you will, that we won't see a repeat of those awful situations of the past? I am thinking of the Phoenix pay system. I know that your predecessors were shocked by the catalogue of errors that took place.

More specifically, are you satisfied that communication between the managers that are responsible is sufficient to ensure that a similar fiasco will not be repeated?

[Karen Hogan]

I am encouraged by the fact that the government is trying to go about things differently. We can't just do the same thing and hope that the outcome will be different. I will stress that the government is trying out an agile procurement process. We noticed that the government has learned some good lessons after Phoenix. The government took the time to work with its suppliers in order to be clear about its requirements before awarding the contract.

We have also seen that the government has asked that end users participate in the process, which was not always the case in the past. This is a step forward, but we can't afford to be complacent. The three solutions that we studied are not—

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

Pardon me for interrupting you, Ms. Hogan.

I noticed in exhibit 1.48 in your 2021 report, which deals with opportunities to strengthen governance, that these are the same findings that were made in 2018, i.e. a lack of communication with senior officials who were not invited to participate in setting up the Phoenix program.

A few years later, we see that communication with senior officials and, obviously, their participation in setting up IT procurement projects need to be strengthened. This is why I suspect that problems are still a possibility. We have, of course, made progress and the situation is improving, but it is shocking to see that the main problem that your office underlined in 2018 with regards to Phoenix is still in your 2021 report.

What can you tell us about this?

[Karen Hogan]

We learned that Treasury Board is working with senior officials on the next generation of the Phoenix pay system. Departmental committees have been struck in order to ensure end-user participation. This is new in terms of communication.

However, it is not enough to have good policy, you also need to show willingness. This is what senior officials need to do. They have to change their approach and mindset. The procurement process for IT systems is very complex. You have to show willingness and a desire to collaborate, and you have to listen to find out what is needed.

We underlined this problem of governance in our audit. As I stated earlier, we can't afford to be complacent. Progress has been made, but there is still work to do.

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

What I am understanding, Ms. Hogan, is that you wish that there was more communication between departments and senior officials.

[Karen Hogan]

That is not the case in those three instances.

We did see this with the next generation of the pay system. Elsewhere, however, we saw problems in terms of oversight, governance and roles and responsibilities.

We can conclude that errors are being repeated. That means that senior officials have to give this their full attention.

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

Thank you for that information.

Moving on to rail safety, I am just as disappointed as you are with Transport Canada's laissez-faire attitude, as well as that of the committee and the House.

Do you have any suggestions for solutions for us to force the government to follow your recommendations and make them binding?

[Karen Hogan]

I agree with you. I am concerned by the fact that a very important recommendation made in 2013 has still not been followed. It pertains to the need to evaluate the outcomes of measures taken.

We have to maintain a good working relationship between our office and parliamentary committees. We have to continue to put pressure on and to do follow-ups with departments to make sure that they look at our recommendations and that they do not just reply in a report, which will then gather dust.

This is particularly important when it comes to rail safety. We have seen that follow-ups must be done everywhere in the country when it is important to do so.

I would also underline the fact that regardless of what the project is, if you invest the time and the people, you should be able to measure outcomes. That is the last step that everyone should be able to take.

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

What I am hearing is that plans are made, but we are not sure what the outcomes will be and we're not even sure if the outcomes will be better.

Moreover, there has been an increase in rail accidents over the 10 past years. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said so last July. Rail accidents have shot up by more than 40%.

Are you able to establish a link between Transport Canada's laissez-faire attitude and the increase in rail accidents?

[Karen Hogan]

We found that Transport Canada has considerably increased its activities. The department has improved its inspection processes and its follow-up process on corrective measures. It now has to establish the outcomes of all these activities.

As to the increase in rail accidents, you have to put the numbers in context and take into account the higher volume of rail traffic.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hogan and Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

We will now go to Mr. Green for six minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

There are certainly some really incredibly important societal questions being put in these audit reports today. I want to thank my colleague Mr. Webber for leading out on what I believe to be the most important one. I'm going to have a comment first, and then I'll get into my questions.

I'll share with you that as a Hamilton city councillor, the most rigorous training I had was in water protection—in water regulation and distribution within my municipality—because of the Walkerton crisis. As Ontarians will recall, that crisis demanded immediate action by the government to ensure that the E. coli poisoning, which made children in those communities sick, would never happen again. One way they did that was by putting a greater fiduciary responsibility on municipalities to give them culpability should these outbreaks occur. Out of all the things I learned as a city councillor, nothing struck me as more serious than getting my first orientation in water regulations due to Walkerton.

In these reports, I find a list of deficiencies and highlights that is pages long. I can't help but think, as a member of Parliament, that if we had in our House of Commons a fiduciary responsibility, a culpability, as individual MPs, to ensure that our first nations had clean drinking water, how quickly this would have been resolved.

What I don't want to lose sight of in my opening comments is that behind every statistic and every metric, there is a community and stories and people. I think about Grassy Narrows and the response they got—thanks for the “donation”. I think about the work of my MPP colleague Sol Mamakwa, in calling for help for the 250 people who were evacuated from Neskantaga, who had to leave their community, which has been under a water advisory since 1995. When Mr. Webber says this is a national embarrassment, he's not understating what's before us here today.

This is a damning report, and if it weren't for COVID and all the other things that have been happening, I would hope this would be central to our moral obligations as MPs to take care of.

Ms. Hogan, you identified the outdated funding policy formulas that go back 30 years and the new technologies. In your audit, did you ever come up with an actual figure, a cost analysis? Has the the Parliamentary Budget Officer done so? Is there a number that would give us the cost or scale and scope of this problem, so that if we were to throw $10 billion or $100 billion at it, we could solve it?

[Karen Hogan]

We didn't really focus on that side of it.

I know that Glenn put his boom mike on, so hopefully he'll be able to answer that. He might have an idea or some thoughts to share with you.

We did question whether or not the additional funding that was committed would be sufficient to meet the needs. When you're basing it on a funding formula that hasn't been revisited for a while, that's not meeting current needs, that may not reflect new technology, that isn't meeting the needs of salary expectations and it's only addressing the long-term drinking—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I really want to focus in. I want to get laser-focused on the size and scope of this problem.

It's before us as a committee. We're providing recommendations. We need to get to the numbers. We need to know.... We have the long list of failures and I really want to shift to figuring out what the scope of this is.

This is a government that found $750 billion in liquidity supports for Bay Street and big banks during COVID. We got $100 billion out to Canadians and workers. In my good conscience, representing Hamilton Centre, I can't think for a moment that if what happened in Neskantaga was happening in Hamilton Centre I wouldn't be lighting myself on fire in this committee right now.

That's what's before us. From your staff's perspective when you do this report, when you're dealing with the departments, when hopefully they're being transparent—we know what their failures are—what is the dollar amount?