Transport committee  I think it's important to note that any mode of transportation has inherent risks, and that is absolutely true when it comes to rail safety. We saw even in another follow-up audit that was done by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, the follow-up on the transportation of dangerous goods, the consequences of potential railway accidents and the devastation that they can have on human life and on the environment.

Transport committee  I think it's important to note that the department has made some progress. We saw an increase in activities, an increase in the number of inspections, better follow-up on corrective measures taken by railway companies and more audits on the safety management systems. However, those have just stopped short of really measuring the outcome and the effectiveness of all of this increased activity.

Transport committee  I think my biggest concern is that Transport Canada increased a lot of its activities, which is great in and of itself if you want to measure outputs. My biggest concern is not being able to demonstrate to Parliament and to Canadians that all of that increased activity is actually making a difference.

Transport committee  Excuse me, Mr. Chair. I was the only one with opening remarks. We're ready for questions.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the results of our recent follow-up audit of Transport Canada’s oversight of rail safety. Joining me today are Dawn Campbell, the principal responsible for the audit, and Isabelle Marsolais, who was part of the audit team. In this audit we examined whether Transport Canada implemented selected recommendations from our 2013 audit on the oversight of rail safety.

Public Accounts committee  I will highlight a couple of things in my response. I will highlight the global public health intelligence network as well as the risk assessments. The agency noted to us that it completed risk assessments. However, it didn't use the right risk assessment, because it didn't consider pandemic risk.

Public Accounts committee  I'm going to throw that to Ms. McCalla. She did some of the work specifically on risk assessment and might be able to give you a better answer.

Public Accounts committee  I'll highlight a positive and a negative really quickly. Positive is the focus on service over process. Really, that mindset is one, I hope, that will drive what the public service will look like in the future, because it was an excellent way to look at the wage subsidy and emergency benefit.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the opportunity to finish what I was saying. Our office's funding went up by $25 million. In July, we began hiring people to build our team. We have recruited a hundred or so people from across the country. A quarter of them live in places where we don't have offices.

Public Accounts committee  No, they did have some automated prepayment controls up front. Both the wage subsidy and the Canada emergency response benefit had a few up front, but not the typical stronger due diligence they would have done normally when handing out subsidy payments. It means there is the potential that some payments were made in error or to ineligible applicants, so those payments will have to be identified and then recovered.

Public Accounts committee  I must admit that I'm not sure that we actually got an answer there. I will highlight that they did some work and that like many federal organizations, they had some capacity issues. As anyone can, you start to prioritize the issue at hand versus doing that preparedness, and to my mind that really underscores the importance of us as a country putting some value on being better prepared.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure that I could comment on the different aspects that might drive what priorities an agency has. I go back fundamentally to why the Public Health Agency was created, and it was to help inform a nationwide response following a health crisis. This is their bread and butter.

Public Accounts committee  I'll start with the positives that we saw at the border and then talk about the areas that were not so positive with regard to improvement. We definitely saw that the Canada Border Services Agency worked and collaborated well with the Public Health Agency of Canada to define guidance and measures on applying exemptions and on providing information to travellers who entered the country.

Public Accounts committee  Your reaction is one that I highlighted in a message that I gave to Parliament that really underscores the importance of acting on known issues. I could use an example other than pandemic preparedness. If I look at indigenous matters, I can see that many of my predecessors have been raising concerns around indigenous matters, and my first reports earlier in February did the same thing.

Public Accounts committee  What we did find here was that the Canada Revenue Agency and the Department of Finance worked in really tight timelines to design a wage subsidy, one that's never been seen in Canada before. The goal of that subsidy was to try to maintain the employer-employee relationship, to keep individuals working and to allow businesses to be better prepared for the reboot of the economy.