Evidence of meeting #62 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was office.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
You have about 10 seconds, so you're pretty much done with the time.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you.
Mr. McCauley, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Thanks very much.
AG, I want to get back to something that's in your departmental plan and also shows in the DRR, the departmental results report.
On page 5 of the departmental plan, “Our core responsibility” talks about legislative auditing, which makes sense. In the fourth paragraph down, there's a comment that says, “Over the last two years, we have also incorporated the assessment of equity, diversity, and inclusion as a priority area for our performance audits.” Where's that direction coming from, making—
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
As we mentioned earlier, the sustainable development goals are a commitment that the government signed on to. We are including that in every audit. The GBA+ analysis is one that the government requires our departments to use, so we've included that in every audit.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
That's right, but on this specific comment about equity, diversity and inclusion, was it the government itself saying, “AG, please put this in as one of your priorities”—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
—or was it your personal choice to put this in? I'm trying to figure out where this direction comes from. When I look at it, it's about legislative auditing and it's about math. It's not this as much. I'm just trying to figure out where this specific direction came from.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
I would argue that our audits are about a lot more than just math, but, point taken, we do love numbers.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
You know what I mean. I simplified it. I only have five minutes.
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
I would say that we look at the mandate letters and the clerk's call to action. Many of the mandate letters and the calls to action required so many departments to take certain actions. We felt the best way we could see whether they were meeting those commitments was to incorporate EDI into our performance audits.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Do you mean “we” as in your executive team, or “we” as in you?
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
Yes. I mean my executive team and me.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
Just continuing into the DRR, on page 8 you have “a workplace of the future”. You mentioned earlier that you hired an independent analyst to look at your place of the future. Is this the result of it, or where's the data or the push that has developed this workplace of the future?
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
That page, page 8, is actually a pictogram that we use to talk to our employees about the transition back from working remotely to a hybrid workforce and how we would get to our workplace of the future. The independent consultant we used was really focused more on culture and a sense of inclusivity and belonging. It's that.... It was—
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
No, it was not. It was an individual who came from Health Canada.
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Okay.
How did you decide, or how did the office decide, on a back-to-work plan that is very different from the rest of the public service? Do you have data that backs up how that 37.5 hours per month hours—which is maybe a day and a bit per week—is going to increase productivity and get the work done at a better level than two or three days per week?
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
It was a decision that I made with my executive committee back in 2021. As I mentioned, we were about a year and a half ahead of the federal public service.
We felt that it was because of the loss of a culture and the loss of a sense of belonging. It was that, and when you do audits, at times it's important to look at the people you audit, to be there in the room and to appreciate non-verbal—
Conservative
Kelly McCauley Conservative Edmonton West, AB
Your return to work is significantly below what the Treasury Board guidelines are. I'm trying to figure out how you....
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
Our expectation is below, but the reality is that many are coming in just as often, if not more often.
As I mentioned, if they are going to an audit entity, the entity might welcome them onto their premises for two or three weeks out of a month. Our auditors and management will be there. Then, the next month, they will be in again at the workplace.
It's meant for two things. It's meant to make audits more efficient and also to create a culture and a sense of belonging that would also, hopefully, drive creativity and innovation. While we see some of that with the virtual nature of our work, it is sparked so much better in person. We also think that the value of some training is better in person, when everyone has their cameras off, than it is virtually. We think that face-to-face training just makes more sense at times.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Thank you very much, Chair.
I too would like to thank the Auditor General for being here with her team. This is such an important meeting for us because it enables us to reflect on the work of the Office of the Auditor General.
What's most important to me is the continuity of that work. We Canadians kind of take it for granted, first of all, that our public accounts.... Have we ever had a commentary on the public accounts? In other words, was there ever anything less than a clean audit?
Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
No, there has always been a clean opinion issued, to date, on the public accounts of Canada.
We do have commentary and opportunities for improvement, however, which we issue in our financial commentary. There are some long-standing issues around the management of inventory at the Department of National Defence. As well, after the implementation of the Phoenix pay system and the change to payroll processing, we had an important commentary there. Over the years, we've had other commentaries around estimating tax revenues and applying new accounting standards for environmental liabilities. The government has acted on those.
There is always an opportunity to improve the financial statements, but the opinion has been clean so far. I cannot comment on this year; we are in the middle of the audit.
