Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon everyone.
I thank all the members of the committee for inviting me to appear before them today to discuss the Auditor General's Report 1 on ArriveCAN.
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are speaking and meeting here today on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I am joined today by members of my department.
Mr. Chair, Canadians expect their government to introduce the necessary rules and controls to responsibly manage their hard-earned money.
Since the start of my mandate, with the collaboration of my cabinet colleagues, I've been working to ensure the efficient management of our resources and of public funds.
While the Auditor General confirmed that rules to ensure sound procurement and management practices across government are in place, her audit revealed very concerning conclusions.
That's why we've taken a series of measures meant to reinforce our oversight of departmental practices in support of efficient management and stewardship across government.
I recently announced a series of actions that the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat will take to strengthen our oversight of departmental practices and processes to support effective and streamlined management across government.
First, we're introducing a new risk and compliance mechanism.
By using this mechanism, the Treasury Board Secretariat, or TBS, will more actively supervise management practices as well as results government-wide in order to prevent and detect inadequate performance and inappropriate use of public funds.
The process will be informed by several sources of information, including a horizontal audit that the comptroller general is undertaking across numerous departments. This audit will assess governance, decision-making and controls associated with professional services contracts, including IT.
You'll also remember that, in the fall of 2023, I published a policy called “Manager's Guide: Key Considerations When Procuring Professional Services”.
The purpose of this guide was and continues to be reliance on third party contracting. At that time, I said the manager's guide is evergreen. What that means is that it is continually open to be updated and changed.
We take the Auditor General's and the procurement ombud's recent conclusions very seriously, which is why, at the end of March, I announced some important updates to the manager's guide.
In order to further strengthen the guide's use, we will enforce managers' responsibilities when procuring professional services by integrating certain points of the guide into the mandatory procedures.
In addition, the chief human resources officer is reviewing the directive on conflict of interest to ensure that the requirements are clear and effective, particularly as they relate to employees who engage in outside employment.
We are also examining guidance on conflict of interest provided to deputy heads to support the effective exercise of their authorities and responsibilities under this directive.
We will also consider mandatory training for employees and managers, as well as additional oversight by my department, if need be.
Additional oversight could be included in terms of strengthening the consequences of non-compliance with the directive.
Finally, we are improving the Open Government portal to ensure that information about contracts is presented clearly, accurately and in a more user-friendly way for people inside and outside government.
Canadians deserve to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent and that they're being spent wisely on priorities that matter to them. We will ensure that department heads of the public service manage their conduct effectively and preserve public confidence.
Thank you.
I'm available to answer your questions.
