Public Accounts Committee on May 8th, 2023

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

What was the cost of the performance dashboard?

[Andrew Hayes]

I don't have numbers on that. Compared with doing a full follow-up report, it would be a lot less.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

If we could get an actual dollar figure provided to the committee in writing, I would appreciate it.

We also heard a few weeks ago from the Treasury Board about its strategy to move more IT systems to the cloud. Is this performance dashboard one of the systems that was done in the cloud, or was it done in-house?

[Karen Hogan]

It was done in-house. I believe we developed it. We are taking a cloud-smart approach. As we modernize our systems, we're ensuring they are cloud compatible. We will move some of our systems to the cloud. It's part of our modernization journey to figure out what goes where and making sure we can safeguard and always protect the information entrusted to us.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have the floor for the last five minutes.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to turn back to the issue of employees. It is a nuts-and-bolts question, if I can put it that way, Auditor General.

How does your office engage in recruitment? How do you find the best and brightest? As we've seen, your reports are instrumental in helping to shape not just this committee's work but also overall lessons learned for parliamentarians on what government can continue to try to do better.

[Karen Hogan]

Like every employer in the federal public service, we post all of our job openings across many platforms. We are very active in university recruitments, especially on the CPA front, and I'm trying to increase that in other fields, because we do need other expertise. We tap into the Black employee network. We try to tap into certain networks within the federal public service as well to see if we can draw individuals from existing pools or to look for certain matters there. We're engaged in a program with CPA Canada for indigenous individuals. I believe it's called the Martin mentorship program.

We are trying very creative ways, and word of mouth is always a great way to recruit. I find that even after I release reports or after I speak at a speaking engagement, there's an increased interest in our organization. We are not turning away any excited individual who might like to join us. We're trying to really tap into as much diversity as we can across the entire country.

We saw that benefit throughout the pandemic. We're trying to maintain that presence, as much as we can, to tap into skill sets that we normally wouldn't have tapped into because we don't have an office in every province across the country.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to turn to the international subject again. There are some who say that when countries in the industrialized north or the west—use whatever term you want—seek to forge partnerships with countries in the developing world to share best practices, there's an imposition of values that happens that is detrimental to the well-being and interests of countries in the global south. I appreciate the work that you're doing, but what do you make of this argument? Is it something that impacts you or that impacts your work? Do you have any thoughts on that?

I'm thinking about arguments that when the west comes in and tells countries that are emerging democracies how they should do things, it amounts to a new form of colonialism. I don't agree with that argument and I think your office should have relations with countries in the global south, but I think it's an argument that does need to be grappled with. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[Karen Hogan]

When we are involved internationally, we're not imposing our ways at all. It is really a learning opportunity. We see it with a lot of the fellows we've welcomed over the years in the organization. They just want to learn about our tools and about the way we operate. They share what they do in their offices as well.

What we get to really talk about a lot is transparency and accountability. Those are hugely important in Canada and are really at the forefront of a lot of decisions. We talk about what that means.

There are some countries that don't have public accounts committees like this that study the AG's work. We talk about the independence of the office and how that's important, not only to the profession but also to our mandate in ensuring that there's balance in our work.

We just talk about what's amazing and great about Canada and our office. It's up to other entities to decide if they want to adopt those things.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That gives me time for a brief question, then.

Auditor, with respect to access, does your interpretation of the Auditor General Act and the Canada Evidence Act provide you with sufficient access? For example, do you have access to the documents covered by solicitor-client privilege? I'm looking for an answer in the context of Ontario's AG in the Laurentian University decision that was originally rendered by the courts.

[Karen Hogan]

I'll start, and I think Andrew might join in here.

I must admit that I'm not sure I know the reference to the Evidence Act, but I will talk about the Auditor General Act. In my view, the AG act gives us access to all the information we need to do our audit in a timely way.

You referenced the AG of Ontario. The language in the Ontario act was deemed to have not been as clear as it could have been when it came to solicitor-client privilege. Up until now, we have always had an agreement with all the entities we audit that we will maintain and protect the solicitor-client privilege of information that is shared with us. Giving us that information is not the same as giving us a waiver, but it's information that we need to do our audit.

The language in our act is not as clear as it could be, which is why it is one of the items on the list of things that would be our wish list should our act be amended.

Andrew, would you like to add anything?

[Andrew Hayes]

I would add that the reference to the Canada Evidence Act is important. On a distinction level, solicitor-client privilege information is what we are tackling right now in terms of access.

With regard to the Canada Evidence Act as it relates to cabinet confidences, we had sorted that out with the help of this committee in, I think, 2017 or 2018. We haven't had a problem with cabinet confidences at all since then. Solicitor-client privileged information is very important to us, because in the public accounts, for example, there can be very large contingent liabilities that we need to see information about that is often contained in solicitor-client privilege and legal opinions and that sort of thing.

In terms of the Ontario Court of Appeal decision and the Ontario AG's case against Laurentian University, there's a very big distinguishing factor that is related to the structure of the AG in Ontario versus here at the federal level. In the federal context, we are a department under the Financial Administration Act. We contract in the name of the Crown, and ultimately it's our position that if a legal opinion is provided by a department to us, it is still covered by the Crown. There's no disclosure of privilege. That's our position.

It's very different in the Ontario context. The Ontario AG is a clear officer of Parliament and is not under a department of the Crown in Ontario. Ultimately, we are going to have back-and-forths with the government about this. We've had resistance at times, I would say, to use the word we used earlier. We will see that happen again, probably, in light of this Ontario Court of Appeal decision.

We will work our way through that, but it would be really helpful, as Karen mentioned, to have the engagement of this committee to help us sort out a clear access provision in our act.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. If you need to come back to us on any of this, please do so. The committee is always eager to hear from the Auditor General and her entire team.

I'm going to turn to a matter of votes before I excuse the witnesses and gavel the meeting to a close.

Shall Vote 1, less the amount of $36,377,433.33 granted in the interim supply, carry?

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$109,132,300

(Vote 1 agreed to)

Shall I report Vote 1 under the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, less the amount voted in interim supply, to the House of Commons?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much, committee members.

I wish to thank the witnesses and the Auditor General for being here.

My little slip en français was not preplanned with the auditor to reinforce her point, but it was well taken.

I'll now adjourn this meeting for us to move into a subcommittee meeting in camera once that is set up.