What I'm trying to get at is that we need to understand whether the minister has the ability to recoup these funds, as the motion states, and whether our committee has the ability to call on the minister to recoup these funds. We have a list of funds outlined in the motion. I would personally like to see where those numbers came from. We should be able to have that discussion to see what comes next.
The role of our committee is not to be punitive to individuals, not to go on witch-hunt exercises and not to be the judiciary. The role of our committee is to review the Auditor General's reports and to find better ways for Parliament and the government to be accountable to the public in the spending of taxpayer dollars.
With what has happened here, from my reading of the recommendations of the Auditor General, there needs to be better due diligence. There needs to be better accountability within organizations. There needs to be a big differentiation between people and organizations. We cannot and should not be maligning our government and our public service for the faults of a few bad apples.
What we should be doing is focusing on how we can improve the process. That is what the role of our committee is. We should be focusing on how to make sure we are doing our best to improve the processes and make sure the recommendations of the Auditor General are being implemented by the various agencies she has audited. SDTC is one of them.
I'm just reading report reference number 6.26. The recommendation of the Auditor General is:
Building on a recommendation made in 2017 by the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Sustainable Development Technology Canada should [develop] its challenge function over projected sustainable development and environmental benefits.
SDTC partially agreed, as it said in its response:
Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) employs a robust process to quantify projected potential environmental benefits across 12 impact areas, at three different points during a project lifecycle. The process follows recognized standards. A 2018 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada evaluation found that SDTC had a substantial review and challenge process for assessing proposed environmental benefits in project proposals.
During due diligence, the best information available is used to quantify environmental impacts and is thoroughly reviewed and challenged by SDTC staff trained in environmental benefits quantification. After approval, SDTC uses external experts to quantify benefits and refine estimates two additional times as the project progresses.
Inherent uncertainties exist in projecting the environmental benefits of novel pre-commercial technologies. Information is often limited and involves estimating impacts 10-15 years into the future. Substantial increases or decreases in estimated benefits are expected as the technology gets closer to commercialization.
The milestones that have been described in this report, I find, are something we need to explore more as a committee. As to those milestones, SDTC says that it will further strengthen its due diligence documentation to clearly outline the environmental benefits challenge function process. If this motion had not been moved, I would have loved to talk to the SDTC folks about what they specifically mean by that. Then they gave themselves a deadline of September 2024 to achieve this milestone. SDTC continues to say that in December 2024, it will implement the enhanced processes, including any enhanced environmental benefit challenge function process.
Having gone through this report, I think what really matters in this committee, which is really the function of this committee, is not to be a judiciary, and not to dictate nor demand. It is to make recommendations based on the testimony we hear from the Auditor General and the relevant departments about how we improve the processes of our public service and how taxpayer dollars should be spent, and how we continue to work together in a better way among ourselves to make sure we are holding the government to account.
The biggest challenge I have is that when we bring partisan politics and shenanigans into the public accounts committee, we derail the important work of the Auditor General and the important work of each and every one of us individually and us collectively as a committee. If we take the politics out of the work we're doing, we will be more successful. We will continue to build better trust in our democratic institutions. At this point in time, though, with this motion, I know exactly what the objectives are. Those are not in—