Public Accounts Committee on April 13th, 2021

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

I know that Ms. Vignola mentioned bureaucracy. Do you think this could also be because the bureaucracy is too large, and it's just a matter of passing the buck from one government to another over time?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure that I could comment on the different aspects that might drive what priorities an agency has. I go back fundamentally to why the Public Health Agency was created, and it was to help inform a nationwide response following a health crisis. This is their bread and butter. They need to help support the country and work with their provincial counterparts in order to ensure that we have a much better coordinated response the next time we are called into action to respond to a crisis.

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

In terms of the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency implementing restrictions at the border and quarantine measures, you said in your opening statement that the Public Health Agency had not contemplated or planned for a quarantine on a national basis. Do you feel that it was a matter of not collaborating better?

[Karen Hogan]

I'll start with the positives that we saw at the border and then talk about the areas that were not so positive with regard to improvement.

We definitely saw that the Canada Border Services Agency worked and collaborated well with the Public Health Agency of Canada to define guidance and measures on applying exemptions and on providing information to travellers who entered the country.

Where the Public Health Agency had not been as well prepared as it should have been was in enforcing this mandatory quarantine nationwide. It lacked some capacity, so it sought some help from other federal agencies, and at times, local law enforcement. It hadn't contemplated how to gather traveller information. That was missing.

At the beginning, it was done in a paper-based format, and later on transitioned to an automated tool, but there was basic information missing, and an inability to reach some travellers. When it triaged travellers and identified some at high risk for not complying with the mandatory 14-day quarantine, it referred a portion of them to local law enforcement, but then didn't follow up with local law enforcement. Hence, it was unable to tell us whether or not the mandatory quarantine was effective and if individuals were actually complying with it. It was a lack of preparing for such a wide, broad-scale response and the best way to monitor and follow up with it.

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

Out of all the COVID-19 reports you've tabled, which report stands out the most, in terms of what the government should pay attention to in order to make changes to better deal with the ongoing pandemic?

[Karen Hogan]

I'll highlight a positive and a negative really quickly.

Positive is the focus on service over process. Really, that mindset is one, I hope, that will drive what the public service will look like in the future, because it was an excellent way to look at the wage subsidy and emergency benefit.

When I look at pandemic preparedness, I hope we'll learn the value of being prepared and addressing these long-standing known issues. I shouldn't have to come back and repeat findings year after year. We should take care of these issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you, Ms. Hogan.

We will go to our last round of questioning.

Ms. Vignola, please go ahead for two and a half minutes.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you.

Since we ran out of time earlier, I want to follow up on my previous question. Could you please finish what you were saying about your office's capacity to take up the unprecedented challenge posed by the pandemic? I'm curious about how prepared you are to handle an ever-growing number of audits, for the good of taxpayers.

Would you say the co-operation you receive from the departments and agencies concerned is satisfactory?

[Karen Hogan]

Thank you for the opportunity to finish what I was saying.

Our office's funding went up by $25 million. In July, we began hiring people to build our team. We have recruited a hundred or so people from across the country. A quarter of them live in places where we don't have offices. In the current remote working environment, we were able to hire people who otherwise would not have been able to work on site. My sense is that we are on the right track to meet the demand and perform more audits.

We intend to carry out more follow-up audits than we had previously and to conduct other audits related to the pandemic as well as other key issues. We are in the midst of training the people we've hired, and once the onboarding is complete, you will see an increase in the number of audits we submit to the government.

As far as departments go, our experience has been that they want to co-operate with our office, but a number of them lack the necessary time and resources. Department staff assigned to support us in our audit work are also tasked with providing services during the pandemic. We have received a few requests to postpone audits, which we decided to grant, but we are turning our attention to other important issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

We will now finish up with Mr. Green for two and a half minutes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm still stuck on the report that PHAC's rapid risk assessments did not consider the pandemic risk of this emerging infectious disease or its potential impacts.

What rationale did PHAC give you when you did this audit, and you were going back and forth? Did PHAC explain, or at least try to address, that really significant material shortfall?

[Karen Hogan]

I will highlight a couple of things in my response. I will highlight the global public health intelligence network as well as the risk assessments.

The agency noted to us that it completed risk assessments. However, it didn't use the right risk assessment, because it didn't consider pandemic risk. However, I would highlight here that the chief public health officer recognized the importance of what was going on globally as well as in the country, and then questioned the assessment of that tool.

The tool PHAC was using was one that was in a pilot stage and had not really been tested. It highlights for PHAC the need for this tool to be refined. There should be a normal risk assessment tool, but you need a different tool when it comes to pandemics, because you need to think about that forward-looking nature.

As for the global public health information network, that network issues two reports, a daily report and an alert. An alert wasn't issued, and I really think one should have been issued. I'm not sure why it wasn't and it's not clear why one wasn't issued. I see a huge difference between the daily report and an alert, but again I will credit the chief public health officer for following the daily report and signalling to her provincial counterparts that they needed to start meeting and looking at a countrywide response.

However, the department needs to figure out what it expects from that network, make it clear, and then use it as intended.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I know that provincially we had a Conservative premier waiting and seeing if the modelling actually resulted in hospital beds and ICUs, and yet I go back to PHAC, which, as you have stated, was not adequately prepared to respond to the pandemic. It underestimated the potential impact of the virus at the onset.

Was there not international modelling based on experiences in places like China that could have predicted the outcome in Canada?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to throw that to Ms. McCalla. She did some of the work specifically on risk assessment and might be able to give you a better answer.

[Carol McCalla, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

The risk assessment is called for in PHAC's pandemic plan. The WHO did issue a pandemic risk and called attention of the global community of the risk of COVID-19, but we found that at that time PHAC did not update its risk assessments and only did so in mid-March, at the direction of the chief public health officer.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Then there was an alert. We were alerted to this in advance.

[Carol McCalla]

There was an alert by the WHO, yes.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

My God.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly Block]

Thank you very much, Mr. Green, and thank you to all of you for your very good questions and to our witnesses for appearing here today.

As you all know, we will be able to do a much deeper study into each one of these reports going forward.

With that, next Thursday the committee will be studying “Report 6—Canada Emergency Response Benefit”.

Is the committee in agreement to adjourn the meeting? It is.

The meeting is adjourned.