Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor for five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Hayes, for coming.

We usually see you and the rest of the team and the Auditor General when reports are completed, so I thank you for your time today.

Can you explain the different approaches between choosing and deciding to conduct an audit for a federal department compared to a different entity such as an arm's-length foundation like SDTC?

[Andrew Hayes]

The main difference lies in the authorities that we have under our act. We recognize that departments and Crown corporations and foundations operate in different spheres within the federal family. We have had, since 2006 I believe, a mandate to be able to, as we sometimes put it, follow the dollar through funding agreements, provided that the particular thresholds are met and that it's not one of the prohibited types of organizations that we cannot follow, like a provincial government or a municipal government.

With an organization like Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the department they work with, the area they are responsible for is an area that comes up periodically in our natural audit selection process.

In this case, this would be different from our normal audit selection process. The 2017 report would be a good example of how it comes up normally. In this case, we received allegations. We'd been monitoring what had been happening. We'd been engaging with the department. We saw the report. Along the way we had identified that we should be ready, just in case, to step in and do some audit work.

That again, I want to reinforce, was our decision; it was nobody else's decision. We made that on the basis of weighing all the factors at play here and recognizing the importance of the work that SDTC is doing.

I hope I've answered your question.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes, and you mentioned that the audit process this time is different from what you normally do. Can you just tell us what you normally do in an audit process?

[Andrew Hayes]

The selection process has been different just because of the way this has come to our attention, much like how it is when we receive a request from a committee to do an audit that might not have been on our plan before. The audit process, the way we're going to conduct the audit, will be exactly the same as in our other performance audits.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

That would be document collection, for example.

[Andrew Hayes]

Document collection, interviews of witnesses.... We follow audit standards all the way through. We're careful to make sure that our report is factually accurate and fair and represents everything that we find in our audit work, so that will all be the same.

Obviously, given the importance of timing for this organization, for Parliament, we are going to try to accelerate and be flexible with our audit process as we move forward, but we're not going to sacrifice quality in order to move faster.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I understand the OAG is not looking into the HR practices from SDTC. Can you explain why your office is not able to look into these practices and really what the focus of your audit is going to be?

[Andrew Hayes]

I might just clarify.

At this point in time, we are still determining the full scope of our work. The HR practices are an area where we may not have the same kind of hook as, say, for example, looking at whether or not recipients were eligible, whether payments were made that were proper, conflict of interest rules and that sort of thing. We know that would fit squarely within the scope of what we can do. There are open questions around how far we can go on the HR side. We're still going to look to see how far we can go with that, though.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

Is there an expected timeline for this audit to be completed?

[Andrew Hayes]

We are hoping to be able to submit the final report to Parliament before the summer recess.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Is this your only audit, or is it possible for your office to come back with more questions?

[Andrew Hayes]

I would expect we are going to be able to deal with everything in one report with this one, but we're always going to keep our options open as we move through, get into the files and see what we find.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay. Thank you.

Chair, do I—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have time for one more question. There are about 10 seconds, so it's your call.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Okay.

I'll just say thank you very much again for coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's wonderful. Thank you very much.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné now has the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

With regard to the whistleblowers, I'd like to know if, indeed, those who contacted you were solely from Sustainable Development Technology Canada or whether others also provided information.

[Andrew Hayes]

I don't know. I have no information on how many people contacted our office. One of our auditors could provide that kind of information, but it's not important to me at this point. I know there are reports that these are people who work at the foundation and perhaps former employees as well, but I don't know the details.

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

I have a broader question for you.

Increasingly, the government is granting large sums to Crown corporations or third-party entities such as not-for-profits, to carry out its political programs. We've raised this issue on a number of occasions at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We think it's a shame. It's our committee's role to demand transparency from the government. Departments must meet certain transparency criteria and requirements, but Crown corporations and entities such as Sustainable Development Technology Canada are not subject to the same criteria and requirements.

I'd like to know if you and the Office of the Auditor General have an opinion on the fact that billions of dollars flow through Crown corporations and that it's impossible for a citizen, or even MPs around this table, to know where that money went or how taxpayers' money is used to carry out the government's political programs.

Do you have any views on this?

[Andrew Hayes]

That's a matter of government policy. I would say that in the case of Crown corporations, which are not directly controlled by government, and in the case of a foundation such as Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which is even more arm's length from government in terms of control, transparency issues do arise. We do, however, have a mandate to review funding agreements, and I hope our report will provide you with the information you're seeking.

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

However, in the—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sorry, but your time is up.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor again for two and a half minutes, please.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Again, thank you, Mr. Hayes, for being present in our committee to update us on this important work.

I look forward to your report. You made mention that it would be available before the summer recess of 2024. Is that correct?

[Andrew Hayes]

That's our hope, at this point. I mean, we're planning as if that's going to be achievable. Obviously, I'm going to just say that we don't know until we get in there what we're going to find.