Evidence of meeting #133 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was projects.
A video is available from Parliament.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, having sat on this committee before, it was often the case that the auditor would come independent of the witnesses in separate hours. When that occurred, it allowed for a reset of the rounds to give opposition parties the opportunity to have a full round of questioning at the top of the hour.
I'm just going to test the will of the room and see if I can get unanimous consent to allow me and the Bloc to have full five-minute interventions.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'll speak to that. I'm not aware of it. I've been chairing for more than two years. That's never even been brought up before now.
I have been giving members extra time. Certainly, you've had good questions. We will see if there is agreement. We're in the middle of a round right now, so I'm more inclined to—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Green, you're proposing something that's never even been brought up in the subcommittee. This is the first I've ever heard of this. My experience is that the Auditor General appears with the witnesses, never separately.
I'll put that aside. I hear your request. It is basically to truncate the last round to four minutes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Green, you haven't lost anything. You say it's giving time back, but as I said, what you're asking has never been done under my chairmanship and no party has ever raised it, not even yours.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Chair, you have consent from me to allow the extra time.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Give me a second.
Is there unanimous consent to allow the NDP and the Bloc to go from two and a half minutes to five minutes for this turn?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
All right.
Mr. Green, so you know, this is a collaborative committee and we often give the two third parties more time, but I'm pointing out that what you're recommending is something I've never heard of here. In fact, my understanding is that the Auditor General always appears with witnesses and is never alone.
Is that your experience too, Ms. Hogan?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I can talk about my experience over four years. Typically, we very much prefer to be here with the parties involved in our audit, yes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for five minutes.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
I would like to thank Mr. Green for his comments, and I obviously support what he said.
Ms. Hogan, at the request of one of my colleagues, your office sent us a supplementary document. This document listed the amounts associated with ineligible projects and the 90 cases where conflict-of-interest policies had been breached. It also referred to the awarding of $58 million to projects without ensuring that they complied with the terms and conditions of the contribution agreements.
Can you tell us more about these projects?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
Absolutely.
In some cases, there has been funding overlap. You have to take that into account.
In this case, it was projects from the Seed component, which did not follow the contribution agreement. In addition, there were also cases related to the additional funding resulting from COVID‑19. All this funding was voted on as a whole rather than on a case-by-case basis, which is required by the contribution agreement with the government.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Can you give us an example where the contribution agreements had not been respected, either in the Seed component or with regard to the benefits related to COVID‑19?
Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General
I'll ask Mr. Lequain to give you an example.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
In the case of payments related to COVID‑19, there were two payments, the first in 2020, and the second in 2021. For the one in 2020, 118 projects were approved in a single vote, and in 2021, 102 projects were approved.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
You're saying that these projects were approved as a whole, without any consideration of project specifics.
What happened with the Seed component? It seems to me that the pandemic was over. How do you explain this?
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
For the Seed component, the projects were grouped together. So there was a vote on a large number of projects in the Seed component, not a vote for each of these projects.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Why was it decided to group different projects together and approve them at the same time?
Principal, Office of the Auditor General
As explained in the report, the process for the Seed component was different from the others. It was a decision made by the foundation.
In our opinion, this decision meant that the approval process no longer complied with the obligations of the contribution agreement.
Bloc
Bloc