Public Accounts Committee on June 2nd, 2022

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm going to give it to you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'll put that in my pocket, so thank you.

Turning now to our second round, Mr. Patzer, you have the floor for five minutes please.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm just going to pick up on a theme that's developing here. There are four reports here. This binder is just full of reports. All of them say the same thing. You have recommendations. The department responds. They say, agreed, agreed, agreed. Nothing happens. We do a report on the report. There are more recommendations, and agreed, agreed, agreed. Nothing happens.

You alluded to it in Blake's round of questioning, but how can we break the cycle? That's where this is at. You alluded to it, but maybe just elaborate and expand on that.

[Karen Hogan]

I think you raise a little different angle: The federal government is excellent at creating an action plan, but it's the actual implementation of that action plan. It's not just the step of the implementation of the action plan, but it's thinking a little bit further ahead to know how I will be able to demonstrate that the actions that I took resulted in a concrete change for Canadians.

Maybe they need to step back and understand that maybe they should take a little bit longer to prepare this action plan, that it shouldn't just be on the process or the tool or the item that was highlighted as having a weakness or being a barrier, but really on the intended outcome.

I go back to a statement I made earlier about applying the same recipe. If we look at outreach to vulnerable populations, a good portion of the country are accessing the benefits that are available to them, but if you want to get that edge, it's about doing it a little differently. The same recipe, the same way, isn't working, and a GBA+ lens or a different angle to doing things is a way to change that recipe. I really do think it's about changing how we've been functioning over time.

I would encourage you to challenge departments to not just always do the status quo going forward, and perhaps that will come up with a different outcome for Canadians.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you for that insight.

Yesterday the Minister of Veterans Affairs claimed they had taken significant action to reduce wait times and painted a picture very different from the one though that you've given us here today. How do you respond to that? Do you believe that this is just another example of the government not taking an issue seriously enough and just saying they're doing something, developing an action plan, but not actually really addressing the problem?

[Karen Hogan]

I believe they were talking about addressing a backlog and the actions that they took to reduce the backlog of files, but reducing the backlog isn't necessarily reducing the wait time. There is a backlog. Our report highlights a little over 40,000 files in a backlog for different reasons. About 50,000 or so files in the last year were processed. That isn't measuring the outcome against not only your service standard but the expectations of the veteran. There's a commitment to provide a decision within 16 weeks or approximately four months. Even though you've reduced the backlog, if the average wait time is till 39 weeks or 10 months, you haven't met that promise to the veterans. The indicator that you have on your website to give them a sense of how long they should expect to wait isn't very useful for them if it's so far off. It isn't just about addressing the backlog.

I do consider it a success for every file that's closed and a veteran gets a decision, but it should also be about reducing how long it takes for them to have to wait for that decision.

[Jeremy Patzer, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Yes. I had veterans prepandemic who were waiting over two years, sometimes, to get a decision, to get what they were applying for and what they were told they would be receiving. Giving them that would be really good.

For the Veterans Affairs staff who are processing applications, you said half were temporary and that there was no long-term staffing plan. I think it would be helpful for us to hear from you and your team in a bit more detail about the findings and recommendations around that.

[Karen Hogan]

We found that, as you mentioned, about half of the staff who processed these benefit claims are temporary. There is a repeat request for temporary funding and temporary staffing to address the backlog, but that isn't a long-term solution to actually reduce the outcome, which is the overall wait time. That's why we recommended to Veterans Affairs Canada that they should put in place a long-term resourcing plan and ask for more stable, predictable funding.

Temporary individuals turn over often. You spend a lot of time training them and just as you start to enjoy their productivity, they'll leave for a job that's more secure or permanent. That's not a way to reduce the overall wait time, in our view.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

I believe you just answered a lot of the questions that I was about to ask, as Jeremy asked them.

I had the benefit of hearing your embargoed presentation on Monday. We have four reports here and they're unfortunately—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Excuse me, Ms. Bradford. Would you be able to remove your mask? It helps for translation and clarity on the floor.

Thank you.

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

Unfortunately, there's an overwhelming recurring theme across all four reports, even though they're on very different subject matter. Nothing changes. The same things are identified and nothing changes.

For the record, can you summarize for me the period of time each of these reports covered?

[Karen Hogan]

Absolutely, I can.

The period that we audited for systemic barriers in Correctional Service Canada covered January 2020, all the way to June 2021. In all of our reports, we look at times for information before that, but all of our testing and sampling ended in June 2021.

For processing disability benefits for veterans, the period that we targeted to look at files and statistics was from April 1, 2020, to September 30, 2021. The period for the access to benefits for hard-to-reach populations audit was from April 1, 2019, until August 31, 2021. Our follow-up audit on gender-based analysis plus covered a period from April 2016 until the end of January 2022.

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

It is possible that there may have been some improvements made subsequent to when you made your report. Is that correct?

[Karen Hogan]

I would imagine it's possible. It's a question that you should ask the individual departments. I would hope that they started to act on our findings, even while we were auditing. I would like to think that there has been some improvement.

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

Right.

What I wanted to know is what the procedure is for follow-ups. As we go through these reports and see the recommendations and what they agreed to, they'll give a date when they're going to accomplish a plan or whatever by a certain date.

Do they automatically report back to you, or do you need to follow up? Are they diarized for follow-up by the OAG? How does this follow-up process work?

[Karen Hogan]

That's a tentacle to answer. There are many ways that the department would be subject to follow up.

I will start with our office, and then I will go to their departmental audit committee, and I will actually speak about the public accounts committee. Our office often will turn back and look at audits in which we found the results to be so significant that they warranted our going back. For example, today you're looking at audits that involved repeat subjects.

We also recognize that we can't necessarily devote all of the resources to follow-ups if there are so many other aspects of government operations that we would like to audit, so we have launched a new product called the results measurement follow-up. It's an online product that's on our website. We are trying slowly but surely to add more departments and more results, but it is our intention to start following up just on specific measures or specific recommendations over time. That would be one way for us to keep applying pressure.

The departmental audit committees of all departments and agencies are required under a Treasury Board standard to follow up on any recommendations that the department receives, whether they be from internal audits or external audits including ours, so their departmental audit committee should be following up on the progress that management is making on their commitments and their action plans.

As well, the public accounts committee and the environment committee recently adopted the same motion you have, stating that every entity that comes here is required to provide a detailed action plan in response to our recommendations.

Following up, perhaps, on those action plans on a regular basis might be another way to keep applying pressure on departments to demonstrate whether or not they are taking action, but I will caution that we're seeing in these reports that taking action doesn't always translate into better positive outcomes for Canadians. The focus of the follow-ups should really be on improved outcomes and not just on whether or not processes were changed or modified.

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

Yes. I remember reading one of the reports about how, I think, they measured only two out of maybe 17, and with those two they couldn't really determine whether the processes in place had actually made a difference. There generally seems to be an accountability issue with things being identified, and it's a revolving wheel. I can appreciate your frustration.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm afraid that is time for your round.

We will now turn to Madame Sinclair-Desgagné.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Hogan, the last element you discussed was about how follow-ups work, and I found that especially worthy of attention.

Leaving aside the amazing action plan that has been developed, can you give us the most flagrant examples that have disappointed you in terms of lack of action, lack of follow-up and, most importantly, lack of results?

Can you give us concrete examples of what you have seen in that respect?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes, absolutely.

My examples will also include the reports we are discussing today.

Systemic obstacles in correctional services are the first example of inaction and unacceptable results. The second example is the processing of veterans' applications.

I will now go into the past to talk about measures the government committed to take following the H1N1 pandemic: be better prepared for a new pandemic, change the process for sharing health information across the country and be in a better position to respond to a pandemic. But during our audit, we found that nothing had changed and that the change was happening during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

I would also like to bring up the government's inaction in improving access to clean and safe water in indigenous communities.

It is very important to change this cycle of temporary measures or measures whose progress is slow. That is why I said that, after only two years, I am more frustrated.

I still hope that the government will change the way it does things, but it is frustrating to keep bringing up the same issues, important issues that affect people.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, once again you have the floor for two minutes, sir.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to begin this round in reference to specific calls to action in the reports. In one particular report related to the criminal justice system, they are also found in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. I think that's another report that is in many ways similar in the sense that it provides very clear evidence as to the issues. It provides very clear recommendations as to what's possible and what's needed from our government in order to remedy or accommodate some of the extreme overrepresentation of indigenous and Black community members in our correctional system.

I really do appreciate your office's attention to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It's an important document in our nation's understanding of our systems, but more so, it's an opportunity to rebuild trust and to rebuild our relations with my relatives and indigenous nations across the country. Of course, the risk is that our failure as a country to actually to do these things will continue to erode that process.

In response to Mrs. Shanahan's question, you mentioned that you were working, in some sense, on ways to enforce some of this. You mentioned that at times you don't shy away in your informal recommendations or informal advice to departments and folks who are truly responsible for this ongoing crisis. You mentioned that you've contacted several of them, but my question is specific to CSC and the commissioner's own acceptance of the fact that this is continuing to happen.

Have you talked to the commissioner or CSC at all to motivate or to demonstrate that these are simply unacceptable rates of continued violence against indigenous people, that it's unacceptable that they haven't applied a GBA+ analysis and that it's unacceptable that they continue to disproportionately hire non-indigenous, non-Black correctional officers in these facilities?

[Karen Hogan]

I can assure you that, while the period covered by the audit started in January of 2020, the audit team has been having very many conversations over many months with individuals at Correctional Service Canada. I had several conversations during this audit with the commissioner as well. I did share with her our concern over the findings. We've talked through the recommendations.

You highlighted exactly an item coming out of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and many of the recommendations that came out of that report. One of those was actually a change to the corrections act that required that indigenous social history be considered when looking at the security classification of an indigenous offender.

We actually targeted a certain group of files where indigenous offenders had their security classification increased after the initial rating done by the tool. We found that there was no evidence of the indigenous social history being considered in that security classification. We did not see whether or not other alternative restorative options like healing lodges or more time with elders had been considered as a way to reduce the risk for that offender.

We do have a recommendation linked to that because it's a requirement in an act. We included that recommendation not only because of that, but because it's the right thing to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you more than earned your 12 seconds back.

Turning now to our third round, Mr. Duncan has the floor for five minutes, please.