Public Accounts Committee on March 5th, 2024

[Dany Richard]

I have seen a few occasions—and I think some of our members have been there as well—that had suspicions. I say “suspicions” because, again, we can only know what we see. If we don't see all of the information, it's difficult for us to make an accurate assessment of the situation.

Mind you, sometimes that's part of the strategy. If the information is not being flowed through one point of contact, we can keep certain people in the dark.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

With ArriveCAN, it was detailed that almost three-quarters of the resources were bait and switched. Did you see anything or hear reports from your members of anything at that level?

[Dany Richard]

Not in my personal experience, no.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

What about reports to you by members?

[Dany Richard]

Some members alluded to it but, again, they couldn't prove it.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Why do you think the government cut your members out of this process? We've heard the Auditor General say that the public health emergency was not a valid excuse to throw the rules out the window, the ones your members operate by every day. Why did they cut you out and why hasn't the government conceded that doing that was wrong?

[Dany Richard]

I can't speak to the government's part, but I can tell you that generally speaking, when you are dealing with financial officers and auditors, it can be perceived as lagging in time. If you want something done quickly, maybe you don't want accountants and auditors in there. However, if you want something done well and to bring value to Canadians, you want financial officers in there. You want accountability, you want properly documented records and you want people, when they're signing an invoice, who know what they're signing for.

Although it could be perceived as saving time, you're not going to save money. That's for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You didn't save any money with this thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll turn now to Ms. Khalid.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

To follow up on the questions from my Conservative colleagues, we have had so many meetings on this. I think we're all equally quite alarmed by how much money was spent on this app and how this panned out with the lack of documents.

I'm a little frustrated with how the Conservatives are trying to pin this on Justin Trudeau signing documents and being nefarious and all of that, but I think I'll leave it to Mr. Richard.

Sir, who exactly do you represent?

[Dany Richard]

We represent financial professionals. Again, they're accountants, comptrollers, auditors and members who are there to ensure financial integrity and to ensure that the Financial Administration Act is being respected.

However, if our members are not allowed to do their job.... For example, if someone were to come to me and say, “Hey, Dany, your member didn't do proper bookkeeping”, I'd say they were never privy to the information and were never consulted. If a member didn't do their job, I'd be the first one to ask, “What were you doing? What were you thinking?”

There's accountability here. It's not just for our members as financial professionals—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I agree a hundred per cent. It's about accountability and holding the right people to account, rather than trying to diminish the value of our democratic institutions at this point.

I think you do a very important job, Mr. Richard.

Perhaps you can help us understand how the 30,000 jobs that the previous Conservative government cut impacted where we are today with the CBSA and this ArriveCAN issue.

[Dany Richard]

Whenever you make job cuts, there are a few ways of doing it. The most popular one is through attrition. It's perceived, for lack of a better word, as the easiest one. However, when you let people go through attrition, where does the work go?

I'll use a simple example. Let's say there's a two-person unit and one person retires. They say they'll save money and they're not going to backfill this position. What about all of those tasks, those duties and the workload? Who do they go to? They now fall on one person, who is asked to do not only their job but their co-worker's job.

Inevitably, you're going to have way too much workload and you're going to be unable to do your job. You're going to have some performance issues and you're going to be stressed out. Anytime you cut jobs, it's going to have consequences.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

You're absolutely right.

When those 30,000 jobs were cut, it was Prime Minister Harper in power, and the current opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, was the Minister of Employment. I think it speaks a lot to what the long-term impacts of policy decisions really are.

With regard to the Auditor General's report and its questions around how public service procurement happens, what do you have to say? We are talking about middle management making decisions that did not record all of the financial contracts that were made. What do you think are the next steps we can take to ensure that this does not happen?

We are absolutely on the right track. Yes, the government is there to account. Yes, ministerial responsibility is there. However, at the end of the day, where is the public service on this? How are they ensuring that they are fulfilling their accountability requirements to ensure they're not taking advantage of the public dollar?

[Dany Richard]

There are a few things.

First, we need accountability. The Financial Administration Act was not followed. Someone has to be accountable for that. Someone looked the other way. Something happened. I don't know why and I don't know who, but something wasn't done properly.

Second, if we're protecting whistle-blowers, we need to make sure, as I was saying before, that when someone sees something that's not right, they're more likely to speak up. They'll want to do the right thing.

Third, we need to reduce the reliance on contractors and let our members do their jobs. We are eager professionals looking forward to being able to dig in there, find anomalies and find dollars for the taxpayer to make sure they are spent wisely, to make sure that we can add value. However, we need to be let in. Open up your doors. Let us in. We want to be an ally.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I really appreciate that, and I think you raise a really good point. We have to make sure that our public service is capable and trusted enough to take on those contracts and consulting roles to fill in those gaps where necessary.

As we are talking about—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ask a brief question, Ms. Khalid. You're at your time.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

—the retention of employees, Mr. Richard, what do you think the next step for our public service is at this point?

[Dany Richard]

Specifically with regard to ArriveCAN, there needs to be accountability. We need to reinforce the message that the rules in place exist for a reason. Our members can help you. Just let us do our job.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to our third round. As I said, members will have four minutes. I will probably remind each of you when you have 30 seconds left so we don't go over.

Mrs. Block, you have the first four minutes.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to look at the opinion piece you wrote back in November 2021. In it, you talk about the familiarity that Canadians have with the important work of the Auditor General. Then you go on to observe that “it's the 6,000 accountants, auditors and financial management professionals working away in programs and departments who are tasked with ensuring public funds are spent appropriately in the first place.” Does this include CFOs?

[Dany Richard]

Our members don't represent CFOs, no. However, the Auditor General often looks after the fact, only at the past. Our members, if they are positioned well in the front end, can prevent blunders from happening in the first place.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

It is my understanding that chief financial officers are responsible for or have a procurement organization that works under them, and they actually sign off on funding requests. Is that their role?

[Dany Richard]

That's correct.