Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, what we were concerned about was that PPP Canada had, I believe, somewhat more than $700 million, which they have to invest. They will get more under the current program. Then, as I understand it, there was also some other money announced in the budget. Given that th

Public Accounts committee  What we were looking for.... Again, this was a very large initiative, a horizontal initiative that included a lot of departments, and it had specific identified objectives—things that were trying to be achieved. Also, there was a mechanism put in place for Treasury Board Secretar

Public Accounts committee  The recommendation was that the analysis needs to happen and it needs to be based on needs, so that then, within a comprehensive strategy, the service standards and the expectations can be laid out. That analysis would be core to determining what the response times should be and

Public Accounts committee  I agree absolutely; this is why, later in the chapter, we have the recommendation about putting together that overall strategy related to search and rescue.

Public Accounts committee  Are you speaking about the equipment? We found, as I said, aircraft that have been in service for 45 years and helicopters that can't get to northern Ontario or northern Quebec without being refuelled. So we have significant concerns on the air force side related to equipment. O

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, this was a very specific audit looking at one specific question, which was essentially the method by which the government provides funding to PPP Canada. It was not in any way an assessment of any of the projects that PPP Canada undertakes.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the analysis that we did looked at the amount of money that had been borrowed by the government and paid to PPP Canada. We then assessed what we felt would have been the carrying cost—the interest cost of the government to borrow it—and compared it with what PPP Canada

Public Accounts committee  My understanding is that the task of replacing the information technology system has started.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we noted that roughly $8 million was being spent on different initiatives through that fund. Essentially, we identified that they need to assess what's being achieved with that money and take some lessons learned out of that to determine whether these types of programs

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chair, there were fundamentally three areas that we were concerned about. One is the state of the equipment, particularly on the air force side, where we indicated that there are some aircraft that have been used for 45 years, and they are having to manufacture spare par

Public Accounts committee  Again, as I said, certainly we are concerned when there are aircraft of that age. Also we identified helicopters that can't get to northern Ontario without refuelling and don't have de-icing facilities on them. So we are concerned about the sustainability. I can't say if this i

Public Accounts committee  Certainly, that is what our finding was, that right now the standards are set based on the resources that are available. We noted in the chapter that there is not an overall strategy related to search and rescue. If there were that overall strategy, it is in it that we would exp

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, what we were specifically looking at was what's referred to as reaction time, which is the time between when the crews are tasked to the point in time they are actually able to depart on the mission. There are specific service standards, both within the Canadian Coast

Public Accounts committee  Again, Mr. Chair, what we looked at was the reaction time, and we indicated the results in there. I can't speak to the whole response, but I think we did notice a number of cases—I don't remember the exact number on the Coast Guard, for example—where they had to get exemptions

Public Accounts committee  Yes, that was money specifically allocated for the Treasury Board Secretariat to do some of these monitoring activities.