Public Accounts Committee on June 19th, 2025

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

We are in favour of the other two motions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay, let's take them one at a time. I'll just call it. I don't think we need a roll call for this.

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Motion number two is passed. Thank you.

I'll turn now to number three and give a few seconds for people to catch my eye if they wish to speak to it.

Is there any opposition to the proposed motion number three on your sheet?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much.

I'm going to be as brief as I can with this, and we can talk about it off-line. You're welcome to ask the clerk as well.

There is the upcoming meeting of the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees, which twins with a meeting of auditors general from across the country, in September. I'm happy to talk about this trip in public, because my voters will look at me and say, “So you're planning to go to Saskatchewan in September to meet with other public accounts committee members and 11 auditors general from across Canada?” They'll take a breath and say, “That's fine.”

This is a working meeting of auditors general and other committee chairs. It is about as vanilla as it gets. I'm bringing this up because I don't want to be the obstacle to members attending. This is actually an interesting conference, particularly for new members, because the Auditor General and her team will be there, as well as provincial auditors, and, as I said, committee members at the provincial level.

There are some hurdles we have to go through. Again, I'm in the hands of the committee. A budget was sent to you at the start of the meeting. It is for five members, one analyst and the clerk to attend. The other reason I'm bringing this up is that because we are the federal public accounts committee, we are seen as the first among equals of committees. We do set the tone, in a way, at these meetings. Our input is sought, and the work that we do is both of national relevance and, at times, newsworthy as well.

The process that this has to go through is a bit murky, because the liaison committee hasn't met yet. The liaison subcommittee hasn't met. The third option is to go to the Board of Internal Economy. The budget for this meeting is just over $30,000. We can discuss it. We can vote to approve it. That will just be the first step. It then has to go to the other parties for review and approval, and then it goes to Parliament. I'm not sure how that's going to work, because the meeting is before Parliament comes back, but sometimes they can have retroactive votes.

Again, I don't want to be the person to hold up this opportunity for members to both learn and to play the leadership role that we do.

If there's any debate, I'll hear it, and if there's none, I will turn to a vote to approve what I think is a routine expenditure amount.

Mr. Lemire, you have the floor.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

From a personal standpoint, I think it is indeed relevant to be at the meeting. However, we will probably be in pre-session caucus. I would like to attend the first day of the meeting, but I won't be able to attend the other days. I could even use one of my travel points, since it's within the bounds of what we can do.

Can the committee pay the registration fees, even if I only go for a day?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I think so.

Are there any other comments?

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

On a point of clarification, Mr. Chair, how many people will there be in total?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

There will be five.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

So it's the analyst, you—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It's actually five members.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

This meeting isn't taking place in Jamaica—we agree on that—but in Canada. That said, it seems to me that five members are a lot.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's the maximum, but it's rare that five members—

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent—Akiawenhrahk, QC]

How many members are usually invited on this type of trip?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

For our committee, it's five members.

Is there anyone who dissents to this budget item going to either the liaison committee or the Board of Internal Economy for review?

(Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you very much. Very good.

Over the next couple of weeks, the analysts will be emailing you. There was a draft copy that went out on outstanding reports. You might have seen it. I've just made some tweaks to it and cleaned up the language a bit, because it indicated that decisions were made by the last Parliament. You'll have that again to review.

Going forward, I'm trying to get a little feedback.

This is obviously an oversight committee. Our practice has been to meet generally when the House is sitting, but it is not uncommon for this committee to meet outside of that as well. I'm going to speak with the vice-chairs and consult with them over the next couple of weeks about priorities and what we want to look at.

We have a number of reports that were just tabled. The committee has always put the emphasis on the Auditor General's reports. The environment reports can be studied, but the environment committee will also pick up those reports. We are the only committee that will look at the Auditor General's reports. The others are not out of bounds, but our priority is generally the Auditor General's reports.

We have the four that she just tabled, but there are also a number that were tabled at the end of last year that we did not get a chance to review over the winter because Parliament was dissolved. I'll have discussions with Ms. Yip, Monsieur Lemire and Madam Kusie to see how we will advance.

Generally, I try to get input from the parties on study priorities and then come out with a work plan that encompasses them so that everyone has a bit of skin in the game and some interest about which reports they would like to study.

Go ahead, Ms. Yip.

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

I think we should have a subcommittee meeting in the fall to decide on which reports we should review.

As a point, the environment committee rarely looks at the commissioner's reports, and we have studied those reports in the past.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

As I said, we can certainly pick them up. I'm not aware of the rarity. I've been informed that the environment committee does look at them, but if that's not true, I will speak with their chair to pick them up, since the commissioner has numerous reports and there is no way we can get to them all. I'll review that.

We will have a subcommittee meeting, then, to begin to tackle that.

Are there any other comments?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Can you give us a timeline on when you think that would happen? Would it be early summer, late summer or the first committee meeting in September?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Are you talking about the subcommittee meeting?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That could be done tomorrow, since we've made a request to hold a subcommittee meeting. Otherwise, I think it will be early summer. That said, I am well aware that you will soon be celebrating a very important national holiday, so I will avoid that date.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Yes, absolutely. National Indigenous Peoples Day is Saturday, and Quebec's national holiday is a little later. I'm available tomorrow. I just wanted to make sure that we don't run out of regular committee meetings in September to have subcommittee meetings.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay, thank you very much.

All right; I will—

Go ahead, Ms. Yip.

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

Could you clarify when the subcommittee meeting will meet? Is it in the fall?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No. I will have it well before the fall. Monsieur Lemire's point was to have the meeting so that we don't....

There are things we have to plan for, Ms. Yip, and I can't be calling witnesses if the subcommittee has not met. I might even try to have it tomorrow, but if not, it'll be at the start of the summer, and the four of us will probably join by Zoom.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemire.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

If I may, I would like to formally move the motion for which I gave notice on June 16. It reads:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g) of the House of Commons, the Committee recommend that the Auditor General of Canada conduct a performance audit of the federal Additions to Reserve (ATR) process, as administered by Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada (CIRNAC), in order to assess: (a) the effectiveness and efficiency of ATR application processing; (b) the average processing times at each stage of the process as well as the causes of persistent delays; (c) the transparency, predictability and clarity of assessment criteria applicable to First Nations; (d) the coordination among CIRNAC, Indigenous Services Canada, provinces, municipalities and affected First Nations; (e) compliance with the commitments outlined in the Policy on ATR and Designated Lands; and (f) the results achieved in terms of self-determination, community development and equitable access to public services following the addition of land to a reserve; and that this audit contribute to the responsible, transparent and effective management of public funds consistent with the Government of Canada's commitments to First Nations and in support of the reconciliation process.

Let me explain the purpose of my motion. In my riding and elsewhere, there are indigenous communities that have reserve lands, which means that they receive resources from the government, obviously. I'm thinking of children's services, particularly for education and health, and legal services, among other things. However, many other communities don't have reserve status, which creates injustice and inequality. I would therefore like to better understand these mechanisms and take corrective action. I think that's one of the objectives of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Your motion was already formally submitted to the committee when you sent it to the clerk a few days ago, but we can debate it now to move forward. Maybe it will be brief. I think it would be preferable to do so at a future meeting, but it's your motion, and you have the right to request that we debate it right away.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

I would like it to be adopted, since it would allow the analysts to do some preliminary work this summer. The schedules and formalities could be discussed in subcommittee.