Public Accounts committee  Accountability rests with various entities. We have a responsibility to set strict rules. Whether people like it or not, we currently have a decentralized model of accountability in government. As I explained earlier, that means that responsibilities are delegated to the departments.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely.

Public Accounts committee  It's a system. The deputy minister obviously can't look at every contract or every detail. However, they must see to it that someone is responsible for ensuring that controls are in place, that governance systems are in place, and that those controls are checked on a regular basis to make sure that they are working.

Public Accounts committee  I listened to Mr. Richard's testimony yesterday. I know him well; I've had many meetings with him. I don't know the nature of the complaints. He didn't want to disclose it either. If that's what happened, I find it deplorable. I was chief financial officer for eight years in major departments, and I can assure you that if someone sounded the alarm about a particular transaction, action was taken to remedy the situation.

Public Accounts committee  What I can say is the Auditor General's report is being taken extremely seriously. We're looking at all options right now. There are the CBSA issues that we know of right now. We know it's been audited by different parties, and it has an action plan to deal with this. As you noted, my worry as the comptroller general is that I need to provide myself some assurance that the weaknesses that were noted, for example, in this audit, are something that could be viewed as mainly isolated.

Public Accounts committee  I haven't been privy to.... As I said, I didn't audit the contracts. I don't believe that in these particular cases—I see the Auditor General nodding, so she's agreeing with what I'm going to say—these particular contracts were signed by the minister. The departments operate within a set of authorities that are mostly delegated to them through the minister, then subdelegated to the deputy minister, and then to assistant deputy ministers and on to managers, for example.

Public Accounts committee  To my knowledge, direct involvement in the actual creation of the app was under the authorities of the department. Again, our role was to ensure that the rules were there. We have procurement policies. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Auditor General mentioned a note issued to all departments from the secretary of the Treasury Board.

Public Accounts committee  Based on the Auditor General's observations, the answer is obviously no. She wrote in black and white that the policies had not been followed. As I explained earlier, in exceptional circumstances, such as during the pandemic, the directive is to ensure that there is proper documentation.

Public Accounts committee  Correct me if I don't understand your question correctly, but during the pandemic, obviously, and I think a previous member said it, and it was clear in the Auditor General's report.... The pandemic was not an excuse to do things frivolously, I would say. During the pandemic, there was an understanding that departments and people would need to react quickly, and that most likely, in some cases, in order to deliver in this quick fashion, it may be that the control frameworks that would usually be followed would not be followed as usual.

Public Accounts committee  Based on the Auditor General's findings, value for money was not.... There was no documentation to support the different spends on this, so it was very difficult to understand exactly the value for money at the end of this. I have to say that I did not audit these contracts. I did not audit the work, but I rely on the work of our Auditor General, who pointed out that it was extremely difficult to—I don't want to put words in her mouth here—follow the trail.

Public Accounts committee  No. In this particular case it was not, because they were done within the authorities of either CBSA or Public Services and Procurement in this case. As you can understand, there's a delegation of authority. Departments act within their own authorities. If it had gone above these authorities, then the contract would have had to come to Treasury Board ministers, but in this case it was delivered within the existing authorities of those two departments.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also thank the committee members for inviting me to appear to discuss the Auditor General's report on ArriveCAN. Before I start, I would also like to acknowledge that I am speaking to you from the traditional unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin people.

Public Accounts committee  The plan is ongoing.

Public Accounts committee  First of all, I'd like to thank the Auditor General for all the work she's done on the implementation of the new standard. It is major for an organization like the government. We own many assets and the work that needed to be done was quite considerable. I'm happy. We didn't get any qualification as a result of the implementation, to be fair, but I also recognize that a lot more work still needs to be done.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. You would find part of that information, obviously, in this year's under “Losses of...property”. A very substantial portion of these losses—and it was quite an increase from last year—is due to Hurricane Fiona, as an example. Yes, the destruction of government property as it relates to storms or fires would appear in volume 3—absolutely.