Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 25th, 2022

[Glenn Wheeler, Principal, Office of the Auditor General]

Madam Chair, we focused on the actual projects that were listed, as opposed to how many individuals were impacted by each of those projects. That's not the way the data is laid out, so that information was not available in the data—

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

This is a management audit, though, isn't it?

[Karen Hogan]

Yes. If we knew how many people live in a community, I suppose it would be easy to know how many people a project is helping. On the other hand, if a project was only targeting five houses, we would need to know how many people live there, and whether they make up the whole community. We did not try to get these figures. We limited ourselves to showing how many projects had not yet been assessed or received funding.

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

It would be important and relevant to our work to know how many people are targeted by the projects. We need to know whether the measures are effective. Is $358 million helping enough people? Is it enough or is it too little? That would give us a better perspective.

[Karen Hogan]

The important thing is that the projects that are set up help all the people in the community as well as the generations that follow. I don't know if it's that important to know these numbers. The goal, I think, is to limit future negative impacts on the community.

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

Some communities may have, for example, 1,800 people, while others have 30,000.

[Karen Hogan]

A community of 1,000 people might be located in an area where there is a lot of flooding. This community should be helped first, even if it is small.

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

Exactly. That was actually my second question.

[Karen Hogan]

It is this risk that we would like to see assessed.

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

I fully agree, however—

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you very much.

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

I'll finish my sentence.

There is a second thing I would like to see in the action plan, and that is the priority given to each of the projects. We agree that when it is a matter of life and death, priority will be given to the project that will solve the problem as soon as possible.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

We now move on to Mr. Vidal for five minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I can go ahead. I'm also going to claim the two seconds from Mr. Desjarlais.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

That's fine.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I thought I was done, but I'm going to just come back with a couple of other questions.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Do you want to go? Go ahead.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Mr. Vidal, will you be going and not Mr. McCauley?

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Sure, I will.

I'm going to go back to where I started in the very beginning, with some comments around the quote from the minister in the House the other day. I want to get back to Auditor General Hogan, and then also to the deputy minister, on just a couple of thoughts on that quote.

The second part of the quote, which we never got to in my first round, was the end of that, which says, “we need to invest more in protection and in adaptation.”

Just for clarity, I want to get the Auditor General's opinion. In fact, are we saying we need to invest more money or do we need to direct our investments in better ways? There is a clear distinction there between redirecting resources to the right places and adding new resources.

[Karen Hogan]

I'm not sure what the minister meant when she made that statement, but my observation would be that in a world where there are limited resources to be invested, being able to prioritize those most in need would be the first. When there are more resources available, then addressing all issues, absolutely, would be the ultimate goal. But you really do need to prioritize those most in need first.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Fair enough.

When we take some of the statistics or some of the facts you include in your report, for example the $3.5 to $1 or $6 to $1—I think you know what I mean in the context of those numbers, as you're very familiar with those—and the number I talked to you about before, freeing up $2 billion that we could redirect somewhere else, I don't think it's always about more money. I think it's about money being better spent in the right places, where we can get a better return.

We talked about outcomes and results, and I guess that's kind of where I was going with that.

[Karen Hogan]

I'm absolutely in full agreement with you. Money is not the solution to every problem, but money does help build mitigation measures here to help reduce the potential spend on the recovery side.

I appreciated your calculation. The only caveat I'd offer up to that calculation is that it's “up to $6”. Not every dollar invested will result in a straight $6.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Fair enough.

[Karen Hogan]

But I endorse the point and the spirit behind your calculation.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Put the money in the right places.