Public Accounts committee  I can tell you that had my members seen this, flags would have been raised. There's something known as a price review. I'll give an example of a chair. If you're selling a chair to the Government of Canada, are you selling me that chair at a price you would normally charge someone else in another company, or are you charging me more because I am the Government of Canada?

Public Accounts committee  If my members had been consulted and had compared it to what something is normally worth in the market, yes, they would have raised a flag. Again, I can't speak to this particular example, because I don't know if that's normal or not.

Public Accounts committee  I can't comment because there's not even a financial record of how much was spent. To assess the value for money for Canadians, you need to know exactly how much was spent, and we can't even do basic.... Based on the Auditor General's report, we can't even identify how much ArriveCAN actually cost.

Public Accounts committee  From our members' standpoint, we deal with proof and evidence. Anything that happens needs to have a paper trail. I can only speak from our members' standpoint because everything either goes through an email or is an invoice. There's always a paper or electronic trail. It wouldn't make any difference from my members' standpoint, because we need to substantiate whatever it is in the documents or the invoices.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I do.

Public Accounts committee  I can't comment on that. In general, when internal controls are applied, there aren't any issues and nothing to report. When internal controls are ignored so that things can be done more quickly, these types of situations may arise. However, I don't have any information on the matter to show that this involves a certain percentage or a certain amount of money.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. I'll give you an example. Section 34 of the Financial Administration Act states that, when an invoice is received from a supplier, someone must be able to certify that the goods or services were delivered. That's normal. If I ordered 10 chairs, I must check whether I received them all.

Public Accounts committee  I couldn't speak to that, unfortunately. I wouldn't know.

Public Accounts committee  I'll give an example. When a consultant has been hired, we've seen amounts completely changed and conclusions to reports that are a complete 180° and don't make any sense. We tell our members to send an email raising their concerns and to document them. This way, at least the ball is in the employer's court and you are protected.

Public Accounts committee  Generally speaking, every public servant adheres to a code of conduct. For our members, however, for those who have certain designations, the bar is a bit higher. I'll give an example. If you see something wrong and you didn't do anything wrong, you're a witness to something. If you're performing an audit and an invoice was paid and you detect an anomaly and something doesn't pass the smell test, you have a duty to report it.

Public Accounts committee  It's unfortunately a matter of them not being protected. Again, they have to do the right thing, which is flag it to the employer. If there's an anomaly, if there's a suspicion, if it doesn't pass the acid test, we need to flag it. Once they've flagged it, we always tell our members to document it because it's not about what you know; it's what you can prove.

Public Accounts committee  It could be as simple as an email.

Public Accounts committee  It's to anyone under managerial responsibilities. It could be a director, a senior leader, a CFO or a direct supervisor. The moment we inform the employer of our findings, it reduces the risk for our members, because they flagged what they saw and they informed their appropriate chain of command of the anomalies or discrepancies they saw.

Public Accounts committee  I believe so, yes.

Public Accounts committee  OGGO issued a report in 2017 on what needs to happen to improve whistle-blower protections, particularly in the public service. There's a long list of recommendations, but the number one recommendation is to ensure that when a whistle-blower speaks up, they are protected. I'll give an example.