Public Safety Committee on May 31st, 2006

[Carole Freeman, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

You have made significant progress. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Brown, five minutes.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I think it's great that we have all our witnesses here today. I'm sure yesterday they all took a grilling on the same financial issues as we're dealing with today. I find it unfortunate we can't really get any answers in terms of the public safety side, which of course is what this committee is about. So I'm going to have to go back to some of those financial questions.

One question I have is that in the Auditor General's report going back to 1997, there's discussion about the fact that there were sole-source contracts that were amended--they were originally below $25,000. Then there were multiple contacts for $24,000. Was anyone ever held to account for these contracts, which clearly were outside of the guidelines? They were under the $25,000 and then they must have been brought to the attention of the government. Has anybody been held to account for the fact that these contracts over and over were really outside the guidelines?

[Sheila Fraser]

Not to my knowledge, Chair. As I did mention, we do have an audit ongoing on certain contracts. If we have any findings of significance, we will bring them to Parliament's attention.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Who approved these contracts? Why were they able to go on time after time in all of these reports?

[Sheila Fraser]

That's a good question. I unfortunately don't have an answer for that. I don't know if anyone else would like to venture into that territory.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

On that point, Mrs. Fraser, is that part of your investigation to find out who approved those?

[Sheila Fraser]

Yes, we are looking at that aspect.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Does anybody else have a comment on that?

Mr. Sims.

[John Sims]

Mr. Chair, we acknowledge the findings that the Auditor General has in this chapter on these apparent irregularities. We don't have details yet of where this may lead. The Auditor General has indicated several times this afternoon that this work is ongoing. We are cooperating of course with the Auditor General and we'll be back no doubt at a later date to have a fuller discussion when all the information is available. We don't know yet what some of the important details are.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Mr. Brown.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

My other question has to do with this money that got moved from one year to another. The question is, was there any political influence on that decision, or was it solely in-house, inside the Canada Firearms Centre?

[William Baker]

Mr. Chair, there are two questions raised there.

It wasn't solely within the Firearms Centre, because when issues like this arise, it's common practice, particularly frankly with the Firearms Centre concerning which attention to our expenditures is subject to such scrutiny we want to get it right.... We naturally engaged the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Office of the Comptroller General as well as the Department of Public Works and Government Services, which were the contracting authorities. As a normal course of doing business, we would have consulted and engaged anyone who had an important contribution to make in that whole exercise. As I mentioned earlier, the Department of Justice also become involved to the extent of providing a legal opinion.

On the second part of your question about ministerial involvement, the minister was advised of the possibility of the need for supplementary estimates--that fact is documented in the Auditor General's report--but the pursuit of the issue and the determination of the way forward was handled by officials.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

We heard about the Guarnieri report. I remember at the time--I believe it was in the spring of 2003--there were some recommendations that came out of the report that were public. I'll have to dig up some info to be exact, but I remember some of them. Were any of those recommendations carried out at the time? I think that was around April or May, or at least April, 2003.

[William Baker]

Mr. Chair, the work of Minister Guarnieri was from January through to May 2004. I'm not sure to which recommendations you may be referring. She, of course, was involved in a number of public consultations on the firearms program. Her ultimate advice would have been provided for cabinet consideration as a confidence and is something upon which I cannot comment.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

I have one final question.

The government is planning on moving the Firearms Centre in-house with the RCMP. This I know would be a policy question or process. Can we expect that this might improve the situation? I understand now that we're on a going-forward basis and not looking back. Obviously we have to learn from the mistakes in the past to make sure they don't happen again.

Do you think this would be a positive move to have it more accountable?

[William Baker]

I'm reluctant to speculate.

I think, though, from the perspective of parliamentarians, I can say with confidence that all members of Parliament are getting much more information today about the program than they ever did before. While it's not perfect, there's better-quality information, although I acknowledge that not everything is ideal. I think with respect to the service to parliamentarians in terms of reporting and accountability, the fundamentals are in place right now. As I indicated earlier, there is an opportunity to continue with that. The RCMP is a large professional organization that can bring to bear their talent as well on this file.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you. We'll have to end that there.

Mrs. Fraser, I understood or read someplace in your report that in regard to some of these amounts the motive for moving the figures around or maybe not declaring them was a political one, in the sense that they may not have won votes in the House if it had been transparent as to what was going on.

[Sheila Fraser]

No, Mr. Chair, we don't try to determine motive on this. What we indicated was that there was a decision not to record $21 million of costs in 2003-04. Had those costs been recorded, then the centre would have had to seek supplementary estimates or would have exceeded its appropriation for that year.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

And they may not have won the vote in the House?

[Sheila Fraser]

We did not mention that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You did not mention that. All right.

Ms. Minna.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to go to Mr. Baker. As a parliamentarian, what I'm seeing is that there was a decision made, but there seems to be disagreement also from the Comptroller General as to whether this was the right thing to do or not, from reading yesterday's.... As a parliamentarian, I have to decide which is right and how it works. Having been there myself, I know sometimes there are disagreements. This is one of those where there is disagreement, and they happen in the system.

What I need to know is this. Given that there is disagreement, was there a request by the minister at that time to treat the $21 million in that fashion?

Mr. Baker.

[William Baker]

Not at all, Mr. Chair.

I had, as commissioner of firearms, responsibility to put to Parliament, and through the minister, the most accurate financial records possible. In fact, if you look at departmental performance reports, for instance, there's an attestation that I sign and that the chief financial officer signs. That's a duty I have under the Financial Administration Act, that is, to report accurately. At no point was I directed to follow any particular course.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thank you.

What I conclude from this is that there is disagreement. I'm not going to go over this again, with all the questions that have gone before, but there was obviously no mal-intent on the part of the officials--they got a legal opinion--and at some point the differences of opinion will be resolved. I just wanted to make sure that my questions had to do with what might have been behind the action.

I want to go to something else, because I have a particular interest in the gun registry apart from the financial issues. My personal interest has to be with the survival and the strength of the registry.

I have two questions. One is to Ms. Fraser. Is the gun registry now operating reasonably well? You're saying that it's being administered much better in terms of the cost and so on. Is it stable and operating reasonably well at this point?