Mr. Speaker, with the House's indulgence, I want to congratulate the member for Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière on the success of his private member's motion on shipbuilding. I know he has been working very hard on that and it is always good to see a private member have success in this place. It makes us all feel some measure of achievement.
I also seek the indulgence of the House to welcome, on behalf of the House, the Forum for Young Canadians who are here again this week. As members know, these are high school students from right across our country who have come to observe parliament. Today I have two guests in the lobby, Derek Snyder from your riding of Kingston, Mr. Speaker, and John Bowden from my riding of Mississauga, who are here to observe the process. I know they will have a good time learning about our government.
Today is a supply day, which means that an opposition party, in this case, the Canadian Alliance, has the opportunity to table in the House a motion for debate by the House.
I must admit that when I saw the motion I had some difficulty with the flow of it and understanding it. For the edification of those who may not have seen the motion, I will take the opportunity to put the motion forward again. It says:
That an Order of the House do issue for all departmental audit reports to be tabled within 15 days of their completion and permanently referred to the appropriate standing committees, that audit reports since January 1, 1999, be tabled within 15 days after the adoption of this motion, and that all audit reports requested under the Access to Information Act be tabled forthwith.
It is a complex motion. There are some elements in it that deal with audit reports, on which I will make some comments. I will also comment on the part about referring information or additional responsibilities to committees. The last thing I hope to comment on are some of the rules in the Access to Information Act.
As an overriding statement, all members will fully appreciate that on behalf of the people of Canada, the Parliament of Canada and the government departments of Canada work to the very best of their ability to ensure that the best interests of Canadians are represented and protected.
It is so very important that we work every day on the integrity and credibility of this institution. The motion raises an important issue. I am not sure whether the motion hits the target squarely but I think the motion is important in terms of its subject matter. It is important for us to reassure Canadians that there are rules and policies in place that give us and Canadians the tools to ensure that credibility, integrity and the best interests of Canadians is kept in mind in this place.
The motion generally calls for audits to be referred to standing committees for review. I want to advise the House that internal audits are released by departments to the public domain immediately upon their completion. This has been the policy of the Treasury Board since 1995. This is not a reaction. This has been our policy since 1995. With regard to accessibility to that information, to internal audits, it is a very important part of the policy. The policy states:
Departments should make these review reports, or summaries of them, accessible to the public in both official languages by making use of electronic public networks, timely press releases to inform the public of the results, or by placing them in departmental libraries.
In other words, the policy does in fact direct itself specifically to the concerns raised in the motion, and it has been in place since 1995.
The policy also states that “Completed internal audits are available for review by every interested Canadian immediately”. Therefore, there is no need for some formal process to make that happen because it is already happening.
It continues to say:
Further, there is no need to make access to information requests for completed internal audits.
The motion calls for that and yet it is already in place.
The issue of access to information requests does come up with regard to other internal audits that may not have been completed or other reports that have been prepared by a department but not released. These audits or other internal departmental material may be subject to access to information requests. Indeed, that is in place and it is done.
Canadians should be very assured that mechanisms are now in place to safeguard the interests of Canadians. The principles that guide us, in terms of right of access, are: first, that government information should be available to the public; second, that necessary exemptions to the right of access should be limited and specific; and, third, that decisions on the disclosure of government information should be reviewed independently of government. That is directly contrary to a part of the motion which asks committees to look at this.
Knowing the mover of this motion, the hon. member for Calgary—Nose Hill, HRDC has been of particular interest to her. I do not know whether there was information that prompted her to take some interest in this department through access to information or whether it was an audit report that was the subject of the information.
When the HRDC officials appeared at a press conference shortly after this issue broached the House, the officials described a process whereby HRDC personnel visited over 400 locations where applicants had received funds from HRDC programs and projects. They described those visits as look-see visits. They looked at a file or something else and they had what was described as a bingo chart on which they ticked off what they saw and what they did not see. As a result of that, some 37 files showed deficiencies. In a nutshell, that is what happened.
All of a sudden it comes out that there is this damning audit report which indicates that money has been misappropriated, misused or mismanaged by applicants or someone else. In the first instance, this motion is talking about audits. I would suggest to the House that what kicked off this whole HRDC question had nothing to do with an audit. It concerned information that was assembled by HRDC personnel through visits but which did not constitute an audit.
As a chartered accountant, I have been involved in the public auditing process. I was also in charge of an internal audit department during my corporate life. I know what is involved in planning, preparing and executing an internal audit. What was done by HRDC with regard to those 37 files was not an audit or an internal audit by any definition. I would challenge any member to find anybody in the industry to suggest otherwise.
The proof was in the pudding when the auditors were subsequently sent out to these 37 locations to follow up on the points raised by the visits from those HRDC personnel. In all the cases—and I believe 34 of the cases are now complete—every single item raised as being a deficiency in the file was cleared because they asked the questions or looked for the documents. If an audit had been done, those questions would have been asked, the search would have been conducted and they would have been cleared even before the original visit was completed.
Admittedly, the issue here is the credibility and the accountability of the government and parliament to the people. I believe that the provisions and the tools are in place for this to happen. I also believe it would be inappropriate to suggest that we need to have more of the operating information from departments come through the House and go to our committees. Our committees are not trained to do this and they would be obligated to actually review them and to do reports. Committees already have the opportunity. They are the masters of their own agenda. They can call for this information if they want to look at it. They can make the decision themselves whether or not it is important to review. I do not believe that all reports should have reviews. I believe that only those reports that merit review by a committee should be reviewed. That is contrary to what is prescribed in this motion. As a consequence, I will not be supporting the motion.