Public Accounts Committee on Dec. 11th, 2025

[Andrew Hayes]

Yes, there have been circumstances where there were disagreements. I could point to a previous report in which we recommended that the Canada Revenue Agency pursue all payments that were made to ineligible recipients. Ultimately, though, we try to work with departments to identify recommendations that will be valuable for them and will add to outcomes and successes for Canadians.

When there is a disagreement, we're not afraid to bring it forward in our report. Quite frankly, disagreements are important for parliamentarians to study. This opens a dialogue about a very important point between our findings and the policy approach of the government.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Do you find it specifically concerning that last week, a secretary of state openly said that he did not accept the findings and fifty-fifty agreed with them?

[Andrew Hayes]

All I can say about this is that I took advantage of an opportunity, at a previous hearing, to make my position clear on behalf of the Office of the Auditor General regarding the report we provided to Parliament on CRA contact centres. We stand 100% behind the findings in that report, which were also confirmed as accurate by the department.

[Ned Kuruc, Conservative, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

Welcome, Mr. Rana. You have five minutes.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for their valuable time.

Ms. O'Gorman from the CBSA, thank you very much.

I'm the member of Parliament for Hamilton Centre. You're aware that there's a big port in Hamilton. An application is there for a permanent CBSA post. Thousands and thousands of containers are shipped every year through that port, and 95% of grains are shipped all over the country and around the world through that port, but we did not get it, even though the application is there. I saw the status. That post application is completed. I'm so happy that a member on the opposite side, Mr. Kuruc, is also from Hamilton. I'm pretty sure this is a regional issue.

Can you please explain to me why? Are there any hurdles to getting that permanent CBSA post there?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We work very closely with many ports, including the port of Hamilton. We have a CBSA team in Hamilton, which is in regular touch.

I would point to budget 2025, which talked about the expansion of the supply chain, the importance of port infrastructure and the decisions that would be taken more broadly for Canada, taking into account the Canada Border Services Agency, as well as trade and transportation requirements.

Absolutely, there's a process for making those decisions. CBSA is a critical input, but the decision doesn't rest solely with CBSA. I will say that we have regular and very positive contact and communication with the port of Hamilton.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Do you think there is any point where Mr. Kuruc and I can help you expedite that process?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I wouldn't identify any particular hurdles. We have information they've provided to us. As I said, we're in constant contact, as we are with our colleagues at Transport Canada and International Trade, in order to make sure decisions are taken from a broad perspective.

I don't think there are many hurdles we need to clear with the port of Hamilton.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Jennings, as an MP, I want to ensure that contracts awarded by government departments, Crown corporations and agencies are transparent and constitute the best use of Canadians' well-earned money.

In your opening remarks, you noted measures that ISED put in place to be more transparent in its awarding of contracts. Even if the audit predates your appointment as DM, could you provide more details on the steps taken and where improvements are still needed?

[Philip Jennings]

Maybe I'll situate this more broadly. I may be echoing the remarks of Mr. Hayes.

Ultimately, as the head of the organization, I'm looking for the procurement to be value for money for Canadians, be transparent and be fair. Any outside perspective and recommendations looking objectively at the issues are helpful in us making continuous improvements to what is needed to make sure we stay at the cutting edge of where we need to be to have solid procurement processes.

What I can confirm, which I've said already in my testimony, is that we've put in place since that time a number of very important measures that ultimately put us in a much more solid place. One in particular is on documentation, which was identified as an issue not just in this report but in others. That has been rectified such that a contract cannot be awarded in my department anymore unless the documentation that's required has been checked off. That's a big improvement.

A question you also mentioned is whether there is more to be done. On the systems that have been put in place, I'm very confident that they'll deliver, but until we've actually monitored and seen that, we won't know.

At the end of the day, what I continue to do is make sure we put in place a solid monitoring system that can sample a number of contracts post-award to ensure the system worked as intended, and if it did not work as intended, we can make further adjustments.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

After the Auditor General's reports, do you think your department and your staff need more training?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Give a short answer, please.

[Philip Jennings]

There was extensive training taking place before, but since that time, we've added some additional training that people need to do in the department.

[Aslam Rana, Liberal, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Jean Yip]

Thank you.

For the third round, we'll go to Mr. Stevenson for five minutes.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I'll reiterate that it's our last meeting before Christmas, so I want to wish everybody a merry Christmas before we're off today.

I also want to say thank you to the witnesses for coming. It is refreshing to hear all of them say that they accept the Auditor General report's findings and recommendations. We've had many a witness previously who did not accept both.

I'll start with Ms. O'Gorman from CBSA.

This is partly a timing issue. You talked about one contract that was cancelled. I'm not entirely clear on the timing of it. That was before the Auditor General had a look at the contracts and had any recommendations. Is that correct?

[Erin O'Gorman]

That contract was set up to run from October 2022 to March 2023, and we cancelled it in December 2022. It was a couple of months in before spending any money.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

It was long before the Auditor General even looked at the process there.

[Erin O'Gorman]

Yes.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You also said that you implemented all of the recommendations. Again on timing, was this all after contracts were decided and that one was cancelled? Were all of the implementations you were talking about from the last year?

[Erin O'Gorman]

I'd say it was the last two years.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

If that's the case, can you tell me why the process....? I guess part of the problem is that the documentation is why we don't know for sure, but I don't know if you can tell me why it was cancelled. If you felt that you had internal abilities to deal with it beforehand, why would you start out the contract?

[Erin O'Gorman]

The cancellation came as we were looking more closely at how contracts were managed in the agency. It was not to say that the intent behind this.... It was benchmarking—looking at the CARM project going forward and how we would manage that. We just started to take a pause on all the contracts to understand whether we had an internal capacity. That hadn't been the practice before.

There was expertise that could have been brought to bear, but as we looked at the size of our project management team and the expertise they had accrued, we concluded at a high level that we didn't need to have that contract in place. The process of rethinking before we had contracts hadn't started quite as deliberately as it did until the fall of 2022.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I have one last question. It may have nothing to do with the Auditor General's report on this.

The government has said that they're adding additional CBSA officers. Can you clarify whether this has anything to do with the management of any of these programs? This will be dealing with people at the borders versus anything we've dealt with that would have been in these contracts or on this side before.