Public Accounts Committee on April 15th, 2026

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

I want to reiterate what a lot of our colleagues have said about how much we appreciate the work you do. If your office was the example and the rest of the government actually followed through with spending, I think we'd be in a lot better shape if all departments followed what the Auditor General does.

My colleagues picked what I really wanted to talk to you about, but I'll expand on one part of it that concerns me.

As a CPA in public practice, if I had a client who wasn't forthcoming with information or wasn't following through on recommendations, by the second year I'd usually just fire them and get a different client. You don't have that option.

You started to mention that we should be able to clarify your access to information. Maybe you can elaborate a little further. How can we do that to give you better access? What does that include? How can we do that for you going forward?

[Karen Hogan]

I'm going to call a friend. He's a lawyer. I'm going to ask him to help out here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Karen Hogan]

First, I just want to thank Mr. Chair and everyone on the committee for all of the praise and nice words. I accept them on behalf of everyone who works for me. I just get to sit here, but they do all of the heavy lifting. I will be sure to pass that along to them, because they make me look good. I just want to make sure that you all know that I accept all of this on their behalf.

I'll ask Andrew to help with how we can help you help me with access.

[Andrew Hayes]

Thanks very much.

Off the top, I will say that we understand the position that the Crown corporations in particular, and some of the departments, are taking. They're trying to protect their interests, based on the legal advice they've received. They don't want to have a situation in which that legal advice gets out into the public domain because they've shared it with us and waived their privilege.

What is needed as a solution is a clear provision in our act. It would probably belong in section 13 of our act, specifying that we have access to that privileged information, that it doesn't constitute a waiver of privilege and that we have to treat it in the same way that the departments do. At the end of the day, it would require legislative change. There are a number of ways to do that. It could be a budget implementation bill or it could be a stand-alone bill, but those are probably the easiest ways to achieve that.

We have reached out to the President of the Treasury Board and to the Department of Finance to signal the options. We are hopeful that this will be resolved. As much as it would be helpful for us, it would also be helpful for the entities we audit.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Further to that, in many of your audits, you've come back and said that you don't have new recommendations because they haven't followed through with the implementation of previous recommendations. Do you have a solution to help us push those, so that they actually follow through and make those implementations?

I know that's not one particular department, because it's gone on in several different audits in several different departments. Do you have a solution for us to help you figure that out?

[Karen Hogan]

It's not an easy answer, actually.

Obviously, having a committee hearing on a report is a great place to start, because you require a more detailed action plan than the space we give organizations within our audit reports to respond. If it's something of importance to Canadians and to this committee, having them come back or having them provide updates on a regular basis is a great place to start. They need that constant pressure.

I think more fundamentally, if I sit back and we say an organization has to act on something to improve it, at times they get a lot of pressure to move off of this and move to the next high-priority item. I think I've mentioned before that there's a flurry of activity after our audit reports. There's an action plan and there are hearings and everyone's mobilized, but in six months to a year, there's a new crisis or something more important. We have to make sure that there's funding to keep doing things if they are really going to drive a positive change for Canadians and not just move to the next thing.

I think there are many ways to try to support departments in acting on our recommendations.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

Do I have any time, Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

If you have a quick question, go ahead.

[William Stevenson, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Well, it's not going to be a quick question. It was just following up further on getting access to Crown corporations. I think we'll have to look further into that and look for more recommendations.

[Karen Hogan]

We're raising Crown corporations because they're the ones citing the court case, but it's also happening in departments and agencies. I think it's just important for everyone in the public service family to clarify what we have rights to, so that everyone feels comfortable when they share information.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Yip, you have the last five-minute round.

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

Thank you.

It's been said a lot today how commendable your actions are in following the comprehensive expenditure review and being in the spirit of things. Have these efficiencies had any impact on audit output, quality or timelines?

[Karen Hogan]

I would be remiss if I didn't say that it's had an impact on our people. We've been pushing them a lot—and that was even before the comprehensive expenditure review announcement—to think differently. We're going through a tremendous amount of change, not just in our IT systems. We're trying to change the way we work and the way we report to you. I think it's had an impact on all of our people, for sure.

We do start to see some productivity efficiencies being gained as we automate repetitive tasks, but an audit will always require an auditor because you can't replace professional judgment, skepticism and the ability to connect dots. I think we're only starting to see some of the efficiencies. We still have a lot of heavy lifting to do to drive more efficiencies.

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

How do you plan to integrate the AI? You just mentioned that you're starting. What is the plan?

[Karen Hogan]

We actually have an innovation lab that we devote some time to every year. Right now, we're looking at a little over 100 different use cases on how we can automate certain tasks during an audit using different tools and how we can capture information and data differently. That's why I say that we're not incorporating them yet. It's because we're still testing all of them.

By the time we decide that this is a good use of AI, we will then need to make sure that we document how we're using it, how we're going to govern it, how we make sure the data that goes in is vetted and how we look at the output. We still have a lot of governance to set up around our use of AI as we're testing AI, but our goal will be to help us be more efficient, increase productivity and then use it in areas like translation, perhaps, or the summarization of board minutes—things that just take a lot of time that are not our high-risk items. Then we'll always have a human coming in and vetting.

That's where we're starting, but a big part is also making sure that we upskill all of our auditors on how you audit the use of AI. It's one thing to be able to use it to make yourself efficient, but how you audit the use of AI is a whole different set of skills. That's why this year we'll be focusing on that data literacy.

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

There's a lot there because many of your audits are very customized.

[Karen Hogan]

They are, and I think it's important to look at the federal family. Some parts of the federal family are not using AI that much—they are not highly automated environments—and then there are some parts of the federal family that are very highly automated. We need a broad set of skills to audit how the government functions and delivers service. That's why for many years we have been talking about the quality of data in organizations and how important that is. That becomes even more important as you turn to using technology better. You need quality data, because if you don't have quality data, you don't have quality output.

I think there's a lot for everyone in the federal family to think about when it comes to AI and data quality.

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

With the executive positions being reduced by 24 positions, does this impact the diversity and inclusivity of the senior positions?

[Karen Hogan]

Right now, our senior ranks are actually not very diverse. That has been something we have been working on a lot—making sure that we're giving experiences to individuals within our organization or that we think about diversity as we hire from the outside. It hasn't had an impact yet, but I'm imagining that it will at some point as individuals retire or leave the organization. It's always at the forefront for us—trying to make sure that our management culture looks like our employees, who represent Canada. It's not simple, but we're always trying to focus on it.

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

In your opening statement, you mentioned that you are focusing on strengthening digital literacy and the leadership mindset of your employees. How is that being done, especially with all of these big changes coming?

[Karen Hogan]

I talked about data literacy already and how we're looking at our competency model and saying that having IT skills in some way, shape or form is going to be part of the requirement for anyone who works in the organization, especially auditors.

We've definitely beefed up our performance management, which is linked to our leadership mindset. We are doing this so that we can develop our people. We don't think your path should be just a linear path, where you're always doing the same thing. We want well-rounded auditors who understand all aspects of our office, but also more aspects of the government.

We also think we need to do better at dealing with performers who need some more guidance and help. I think, like many organizations, we haven't always been that good at helping identify what areas of performance management people should work on, and then making sure that they have the time to upskill, train and improve their performance. We're going to really focus a lot on that as a leadership skill as we focus on performance management across the whole organization.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. Yip.

We're now going to do some housekeeping business.

First, I want to thank the witnesses, the Auditor General and her team, for coming in and for their testimony as we look at the main estimates for 2026-27.

We're now going to vote on those estimates. This is just like any regular motion.

Shall vote 1, less the amount of $30,076,189.50 granted in interim supply, carry?

OFFICE OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$120,304,758

(Vote 1 agreed to)

Shall I report vote 1, under the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, to the House of Commons?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.