Public Accounts Committee on Feb. 1st, 2022

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure to work with you again. It's my return engagement on public accounts. I had a couple of learnings along the way, so my questions may be beyond training and more on how this committee should operate.

One of the things that I think we've made some progress or evolution on is that.... There are a number of files that are consistent non-performers or departments that are consistently not hitting the targets in the Auditor General's reports. To be non-partisan, for my friends across the aisle, some of them date back to John A. Macdonald, I'm pretty sure, so it goes across numerous governments. We've started putting in the process of more and more follow-ups, but I was wondering if we could get your comments on what the best practice is. I'm thinking of the shipbuilding file, of clean water for indigenous peoples—files that are constantly reappearing with very little or no improvement.

[Carol Bellringer]

There is no question that the follow-up process is intended to correct that.

My experience is from the provincial sector, and Lesley's certainly senior practice is more broad.

When a report comes back to the committee for follow-up, I have seen far too many times the ministry saying, “Yes, we've got it” or, “Yes, they're implemented”, and it's critical to dive into, “Well, show me.” It's the “trust but verify” example. You need to have a good working relationship with them, but it doesn't mean you don't have to see the evidence: “Can you show us what you've done?”; “Explain exactly what you've done”; “How can you be sure that it is something that is going to fix this problem?”

While the audit office may not have done a follow-up audit on it, I've certainly had the question thrown at me, “Well, Madam Auditor, if that's what they've done, is that going to resolve the problem?” Certainly the audit office can speak to whether or not what they're hearing is consistent with what they were looking for. It really is in that follow-up process.

The time challenge is that if you redid every audit, you'd never get anything new done, so they can't put all their time into doing this. At the same time, you can narrow it down to key risk areas, focus on the big problem areas, and then really dive into whether or not it's been remedied.

[Lesley Burns]

Yes, and to add to that, I would say, have very clear recommendations in your reports, with deadlines, and then stay on top of that. If the committee gives them a recommendation, you can ask them to report back to you at given intervals, and then you are on top of the progress. That tends to deliver results.

If the programs are very complex and there are long timelines for deliverables, then break it down into smaller chunks if you can, with recommendations that correspond to that, so that the department is checking back more frequently. If it's something of a very complex nature and the committee isn't sure what a realistic timeline is, you can work with management. Ask the deputy ministers how much time they need to get back to you on that or how much time they need to accomplish a certain goal, and work with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Mr. Dong, go ahead, please.

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to say thank you to both presenters. I had the pleasure of meeting them early on. Thank you very much again for reaching out. It's very important for new PAC members like myself.

I have one question, and I don't know if this is the appropriate setting—I guess it is—to ask this.

My experience on public accounts committees at other levels of government has been very good. I remember one conversation I had with the then NDP whip. He expressed disappointment in how effective different committees are nowadays. My limited experience on the federal committee in the last two years kind of reminded me of that conversation we had.

I don't know if there's a system or procedure, or whether it is within the Auditor General's power to audit the three Es that you mentioned early on, particularly the efficiency aspect of Parliament's committees. I just feel that a lot of times an emergency meeting is called—not at this committee, of course, but other committees—and at the end of it, nothing gets achieved. Everybody will say their piece, and then time gets exhausted, and they just move on.

Can you comment on this and maybe shed some light for me on the efficiency of committees and who kind of looks after that?

[Carol Bellringer]

I'm hoping Lesley jumps in.

I'm going to share this as a former auditor general. It's a little bit of a “Don't bite the hand that feeds you”, so there is a bit of a line. I don't know how formal it is or unspoken, but there is a bit of a line to stay out of Parliament's business.

Maybe Lesley can add something a little more concrete to that.

[Lesley Burns]

In terms of the effectiveness and the efficiency of the committee and who that is up to—that's up to you. It's up to the members when they walk into the room at every single committee meeting. Do you want this to be an effective meeting, or do you want to run it off the rails? Do you want to clog up the questioning in a hearing with softball questions, things that aren't really digging down to the root cause, or do you want to be digging down to that root cause and being effective?

The chair bears a little [Technical difficulty—Editor]. The chair really is in charge of setting the tone and building that committee culture, and what I've seen in the many public accounts committees that I've researched is that it ultimately comes down to culture. You are very fortunate that you have the good practices in place, but we've seen many committees, even in provinces in Canada, overcome a lack of institutional infrastructure with a good collaborative culture to have excellent impacts.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Sorry, Ms. Bradford. You raised your hand before, so go ahead.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes.

I was just wondering if you could give us an opinion on the GC InfoBase, where the Treasury Board publishes complex information, supposedly in a simple format for the understanding of the public.

[Carol Bellringer]

Lesley, do you know about that?

[Lesley Burns]

I couldn't speak to that specifically, but I do know that if you as a committee are finding that the information you're being given is not in a format that is digestible to you, then you can speak to the audit office or the comptroller's office and request that the information come to you in a different format. They produce the information that they produce to benefit you so that you can do your role, so if there is something that would be helpful, I encourage you to express that.

I do want to say, the caveat [Technical difficulty—Editor] general are independent, and they can't always provide you with the information that you're requesting, but I know that they will let you know if it feels that it crosses a line, and they do want you to be able to use that information. You also have support staff that you can rely on, who are very well versed in going through that sort of information and getting you the information you want, so I would encourage you to raise any questions with them as well.

I see Dillan has raised his hand, so I'm sure he can give you even more information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

I'm going to ask the analyst to jump in because I see his hand is raised.

[Dillan Theckedath, Committee Researcher]

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and thank you to everybody in attendance.

Just to speak to GC InfoBase, the best I can say is that we at the library are very fortunate to have skilled practitioners. We have research librarians who have worked on it for years. What I can say is that even to a skilled practitioner, sometimes GC InfoBase is a bit of a tricky beast to manipulate. It's a lot of complicated information presented [Technical difficulty—Editor] with usage comes more experience and help. One thing I would recommend, if ever a member wishes to extract something, is to reach out to the library. We could put in a request to one of our very seasoned senior reference librarians, and they can find that stuff pretty easily.

Theoretically, it is publicly available, but it's just like anything. The example I like to use is tennis courts. Tennis courts are publicly available, but as much time as I spend on a tennis court, I might not ever get to win the Rogers Cup. I'm pretty good, but not that good. What I recommend is that we reach out to the reference librarians, and they're very good at that stuff. We get numerous requests on this. They know which tables the stuff is typically in and how to use it, and sometimes they can also reach out to the Treasury Board if they need clarification.

Mr. Chairman, if I'm [Technical difficulty—Editor] what Mr. Dong had, if I could indulge you time, Mr. Chairman, just very quickly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Yes, if you could, go quickly because I was going to ask if another member wants to ask a question.

Go ahead.

[Dillan Theckedath]

As Dr. Burns pointed out, it is the committee's role and responsibility to create the type of culture and committee it wants to be, but one of the practices we have as analysts on the committee is that we provide suggested questions in our briefing notes. These questions focus on the findings and the recommendations of the audit. That's one way in which the analysts help to ensure that the discussion can take place and is focused on the issue at hand.

Another thing is that twice a year the analysts go through a summary of all the recommendations and outstanding responses from government departments. We do this twice a year. We assemble a rolling list of this every year, and twice a year we present a summary of our findings to the committee, and the committee can then determine what action it wants to take with regard to outstanding responses, or departments that are not being fulsome or fully adequate in their responses.

Those are two ways in which the staff help support the work of the committee to help it stay on its course.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Thank you for that.

Before I give the floor to Ms. Yip, I'd like to check something.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, would you like to ask a question, but are having difficulty using the “raise hand” function? If so, I'll give you the floor once Ms. Yip has spoken. Is that okay?

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

I actually had a point of order. Our interpreter was having trouble hearing Ms. Burns's remarks, but that seems to have been resolved now.

I just wanted to point out, for future reference, that this incident did occur.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Okay. If it happens again, you can just raise a point of order. I'll then suspend the meeting to ensure that the interpretation works in both official languages.

Thank you.

Ms. Yip, please go ahead.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

It's great to see you again, Ms. Bellringer and Ms. Burns.

Ms. Bellringer, you mentioned our work being respected internationally. Could you elaborate on that? Also, how do we compare to other public accounts committees internationally? Do we review the same number of reports? Is the quality the same, and so forth?

[Carol Bellringer]

Lesley, you have more of the comparisons.

I will raise the connection with the Commonwealth parliamentary groups. That is one area where Canada is highlighted and showcased.

[Lesley Burns]

Ranking committees can be very difficult, because a committee could be effective in one Parliament and not effective in the other, without any changes other than the members. A committee can go through a very effective phase and then slip off into something that is ineffective.

If I had to generalize, I would say that Canada is ranked very high. We are continually invited to showcase some of our work at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's yearly conferences with the group within the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association that focuses on public accounts committees specifically.

We implement many of the recommended good practices at the federal level, so I would say that your committee is one of the best in the world. The U.K. is typically touted as being the top committee; they function in some ways similar to Canada, and in some ways they're a little different, but I would say that Canada's is right up there, close to that, when it is operating effectively.

[Carol Bellringer]

Within Canada, there is an annual conference when the public accounts committees across Canada meet at the same time as the auditors general. The CCOLA/CCPAC conference is actually being held in Ottawa this year, coming up.

In that context, it's definitely.... The Canadian [Technical difficulty—Editor] is looked at by all of the provinces. When we go through the best practices list, your federal public accounts committee ticks off all the boxes. I think Lesley referenced that earlier. If you go across the country, each province might be missing a couple here or there, and that changes from time to time, but there is a definite eye on the federal PAC by the rest of the country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

Go ahead, Dr. Burns.

[Lesley Burns]

Just to give an example of the respect your committee has, you often get [Technical difficulty—Editor] delegations so they can observe the work of the federal committee. I know that some come through our program with our international partners, and I know that on a fairly regular basis your committee is approached by other countries as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Tom Kmiec]

I'll go to Mr. Lawrence next, and then Mrs. Shanahan afterwards.