I now call the meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 72 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, April 28, 2022, the committee is resuming its consideration of the follow-up study on report 3, “Access to Safe Drinking Water in First Nations Communities—Indigenous Services Canada”, found in the 2021 Reports 1 to 5 of the Auditor General of Canada.
For your information, we held our first meeting on this study on June 14, 2022, at which time we heard from witnesses representing the Office of the Auditor General and the Department of Indigenous Services.
We reinvited people from the Office of the Auditor General to appear today, June 19, but they respectfully declined, as they have not done any additional audit work since the report was tabled, and are therefore unable to provide any clarification or nuance to what the Associate Deputy Minister would say, or about the progress made in the departmental action plan.
We reinvited a witness from the Department of Indigenous Services, but he was not available today or Thursday, June 22.
We also invited people from the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs. They first refused the invitation, saying that the subject matter falls under the responsibility of the Department of Indigenous Services. However, when we informed them that the audit was from before 2017 and that it also concerned their department, they reconsidered the invitation, but they were also not available today or on Thursday, June 22.
With that in mind, I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Desjarlais.