Public Accounts Committee on April 20th, 2023

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Would you say that the output indicator, then, would be the number of children staying in school or the income levels? Is that the kind of thing that we're looking at?

[Patricia Peña]

I can give you some specifics. Productivity has increased by a factor of 6% in these communities. There are 254 loans, for instance, in this project that would never have existed before. The diets of targeted communities toward fish have increased by 20%, to 30% to 40%, depending on the community.

We're seeing it in real results in the various communities in these areas, and they're healthier.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

So that's all rolling out, on an aggregate level.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have been told a lot of things. However, I have to be honest: what I have been told to justify the failure to disclose certain projects does not satisfy me. It has not persuaded me.

Based on what I have heard from Ms. Peña, I am wondering, technically, how it can be that the tools are not available to measure the effect and consequences of all the mechanisms for helping these women become autonomous and start up businesses. I'm not trying to find out the value of a dollar invested, because even if I asked the United Way, they would tell me that $1 is equivalent to $20 in food aid for a family.

Ms. Hogan, what are the procedures when you ask for something, but you don't receive everything you need to do your audit properly? How does that work? Could you give me an explanation? I'm not an expert in this field.

[Karen Hogan]

It is a process of continuous dialogue between our audit teams and the department. When the request is made, we ordinarily set a deadline. Sometimes we negotiate it, but there always has to be a deadline set; otherwise, we would never get the information needed for doing our work.

In this case, we made a request again and did continuous follow‑up over several months, during which we received a very small volume of documents, little by little. We drafted a version of our report that showed the amount of information we were missing. I believe that it was sent to the deputy minister, who said that it was not acceptable and the documents would have to be found. The process took its course, and ultimately we received a lot of documents.

However, even though we have now reached the end of the audit, there are still ten files that are incomplete or do not contain any information.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I would like to know whether you have concerns about the management of the institution. I would like to know what you think about that.

[Karen Hogan]

It concerns me because in the files we have received, it is clear that it was the manager piloting the project at the outset, and it was senior management and supervisors who took over after that.

Why did no one ask for a summary of the information on all the projects? A comprehensive picture of everything the department does could have been provided. That shows that there is a lack of training about the importance of processing information properly and about how to interpret data in order to make properly informed decisions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor for two and a half minutes. The clock is ticking.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to turn to one of the recommendations by the Auditor General, 4.34. For the convenience of the members, I'll read it: “Global Affairs Canada should consider identity factors beyond [gender and] age in its project-level gender equality assessments to support more inclusive programming.”

It was noted by the Auditor General that it assessed aspects of the gender inequality work within your department. However, it found that it didn't necessarily expand that review to the other aspects of equality and equity that are now commonly seen as important factors in human rights in this country and hopefully beyond—so that “plus” portion of it.

In speaking directly to that, how are you going to compensate for deficiencies going forward?

[Christopher MacLennan]

Of the three recommendations, this is one that's quite interesting.

As I mentioned, the policy was launched in 2017. Between 2017 and 2020, we absolutely recognized exactly the issue that the Auditor General has pointed out here.

In 2020, significant changes were made to our approach to doing gender-based analysis, and that's when the plus was added. We added those criteria of, as I've said, ethnicity, race, religion and age, these intersecting things that may contribute to increased vulnerability and that should be integrated into the way that projects are designed and rolled out.

The 10 projects that the Auditor General looked at were all approved prior to 2020, so they were all approved prior to the change that was made in the department in 2020.

What we're going to do, though, is launch immediately a review to verify that the changes we made in 2020 respond to the findings that the Auditor General had of projects that existed prior to 2020, and, if changes are necessary, if we need to change procedures, if we need to change training, for example, or if we need to change the guidance documents that our project officers use, then we'll undertake that.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Who would be responsible for that, would you say, in your ministry? Is it some of the colleagues you have present with you?

[Christopher MacLennan]

Patricia, thankfully, is going to oversee all of the response—

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Oh, wow.

[Christopher MacLennan]

—but we have a dedicated team of gender equality experts.

In our department, we have specialists across a variety of sectors such as agriculture and food, climate and health, but we also have a dedicated group of gender equality specialists. We probably, in the OECD DAC, have one of the larger teams who does this work. We are recognized as being some of the more advanced. For example, at Global Affairs Canada, we have a gender-based approach to evaluations now that we do in the department.

This team is the one who supports it—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Desjarlais, I'm going to try to get one more round in, so if you'll allow me, I'll keep moving here.

Mr. McCauley, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Chair, thanks.

AG Hogan, looking at your report 4.3, you mention that the “audit only looked at bilateral development assistance.”

Is there a specific reason for that and not others, or what other ones are there?

[Karen Hogan]

I would point to some testimony that the deputy minister gave.

In international assistance, there are multilateral investments, where a pile of money from many countries gets accumulated, so it's really hard to identify and target what Canada's contribution might have done to advance the outcomes of a multilateral organization, which is why we focused in on the bilateral. It also makes up $3.5 billion out of the $5.2 billion. It's a majority of the spending.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

It almost sounds like you were giving him a break by trying to look at the ones that are easier to track, and we still failed.

[Karen Hogan]

I was trying to focus in on where we can truly assess the value of Canada's investment.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Right.

[Karen Hogan]

It was not at all to give them a break but to be able to target and show the value to Canadians.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Great.

Jumping over to 4.15 and, Mr. MacLennan, this may be more for you.

The AG writes that, to conduct their work, they needed Global Affairs to provide documents. The department didn't provide all the documents. They said they were too difficult to locate and not available to audit, they didn't keep data repositories or they were left on computers that they couldn't access. I'm flummoxed how we could have billions of dollars being spent that we contract....

Have every one of these what I think are relatively simple issues been immediately addressed? How did it get to this?

[Christopher MacLennan]

In part, it's that there are multiple systems that teams are working on. Global Affairs is a large, amalgamated department and has multiple IM/IT systems that are being used.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

I understand that, but I mean, “Bill's no longer with us. We can't access the data on his computer.” It's 2023.