Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 24th, 2020

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have one last comment to make.

Against the background of the pandemic, when our meetings are held virtually, the francophone members are very grateful when we receive the written opening remarks from each of the witnesses in advance, not just while they are making their speeches. Today, we had speaking notes from Ms. Tapley, from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, and from the Auditor General, Ms. Hogan.

Thank you very much, Ms. Tapley and Ms. Hogan.

However, I would like to have had the notes from all the witnesses, because the notes contain important information. It allows us to be better prepared for the meetings, especially when we don't have the opportunity to be there in person.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

That's a fair comment, Mr. Berthold.

Thank you for all the preparatory work and the presentations this morning.

We've had a very fruitful discussion after a very intense audit and it looks like we have some action items that will be ongoing.

Congratulations to everybody for the work you've done to get to the committee, and prior to getting here as well.

We'll suspend now and go into committee business. I would kindly ask our visitors to leave, and then we'll go in camera for committee business.

Thank you.

[The Clerk]

We're not going in camera.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Oh, yes, it's because we have to do different logins. It's just amongst us.

Okay, we've had some modifications to our schedule.

We sent out a new calendar because the public accounts were delayed until November 30, which has opened up an opportunity this Thursday to have the Auditor General come to speak to us about her plans for the next series of audits. That would be in camera with a separate login. We could have a chance to discuss her priorities then.

Then we would have a follow-up workshop on the questions that we're asking, how the committee is doing, from the agency that we used earlier.

I want to open that part of it up for discussion of our schedule of people. Have people had a chance to look at it?

There is one open item on the schedule, and that's our December 10 meeting. There's a choice of either looking at workplace harassment or the spending of money by the Government of Canada on advertising.

That's an open question. Are there any other comments from the floor?

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

With regard to the session a week on Thursday, December 3, we had agreed last week on my motion, which was to have more time for additional study on Report 3 entitled “Taxation of E-Commerce” from the 2019 spring reports.

In my motion, it is clear that we must have up-to-date action plans, so that we have more precise data. I just want to check with the clerk that we will have them for sure. If not, we may have to push that meeting back and revise the schedule, if we do not have the information that is crucial for the meeting.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Maybe I could turn that over to our clerk with regard to what's being asked for.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Angela Crandall]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

Yes, the invitation was sent once the motion was adopted by the committee. Within the invitation and motion, an updated action plan was requested as well.

I haven't received them yet, but as soon as I do, they will be distributed to the committee.

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

Mr. Chair, I just want to make sure that we will not be caught short. If we do not have up-to-date action plans next Thursday, we will be in a kind of spot. Can the clerk make a formal guarantee to me that we will have that information, so that we can sit in the way we are supposed to at the meeting on Thursday, December 3?

[The Clerk]

I can certainly follow up with the departments today and advise them of the requirement and insist that they act as quickly as possible.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, I have some questions about the meeting on November 26. During the first hour, we will be hearing from the Auditor General about the upcoming audits. We had one meeting where she explained very clearly to us the audits scheduled for March. So we will be talking for an hour about things that we've already gathered from her when we had the opportunity to meet her behind closed doors.

I would like to know why that one-hour meeting with the Auditor General on upcoming audits was planned. It's not really needed. I don't feel the need for her to come and talk to us for an hour about the audits coming up in the next meetings. We are already aware of the spring program, because she showed it to us last time.

[The Clerk]

Mr. Chair, this was at the request of the Auditor General. That's why it's a proposed calendar. If the committee doesn't wish to proceed in this manner, it certainly does not have to.

I assume that she felt she had more that she would like to convey to the committee. I don't have any further information about that, but definitely she has a plan to provide the committee with more information on Thursday if the committee wishes to receive it.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I think what she presented to us initially was that she wanted to make sure that she was available and accessible to us. Now that we've had a few meetings together, we may also have some different thoughts.

It's up to the committee what the committee wants to do.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, if the Auditor General wants to meet with us, it is perfectly legitimate to have her here. We could also ask her questions on the committee's work since it has been newly constituted, for example, whether she considers that we are equipped to answer her questions and identify failings in the various reports and action plans submitted to us. If that is the situation, I have no objection to our inviting the Auditor General on Thursday.

Madam Clerk, with regard to our training scheduled in the second hour, does one hour seem enough to you? I feel that we really need it so that we can establish a basis for the upcoming studies.

[The Clerk]

If I may, Mr. Chair, I would say that originally—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

We discussed this on Monday with the chair of the committee, as well. We thought that the training we could receive would focus on our questioning, on the mandate of the committee, and even having the audit agency give us an evaluation of how well we're doing so far in relation to our mandate and maybe suggest any areas for improvement.

There's a second type of training, and I'll turn that over to the clerk on how that training is separated.

[The Clerk]

Originally, the meeting was going to be for two hours. One hour would be the training session on questioning and reviewing the Auditor General's report, and the second hour would be on reviewing the public accounts.

Since the committee would probably put that off until after Christmas, it would be more appropriate to have that training closer to the time that the committee would be studying the public accounts. I believe that one hour was sufficient in the planning for the workshop on questioning.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

That is a very good answer, Ms. Crandall.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Does anybody else have questions on this?

Mr. Theckedath.

[Dillan Theckedath, Committee Researcher]

I agree with the clerk. One hour, which will essentially be about the way in which to question witnesses and analyze the Auditor General's reports, will be sufficient for that kind of work.

Another hour will be for you to study the public accounts, once they are tabled in the House of Commons

I wanted to support Angela's analysis on that one hour.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Could we have approval for the revised schedule that we have in front of us? Can we go ahead with that?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

It looks like we've got a consensus on that.

That was an excellent meeting. The team did a great job, and got some really good information, so congratulations to everybody.

We'll see you Thursday.

The meeting is adjourned.