Public Accounts committee  , A very important step, a normal step in the case of an information technology project or new IT system being put into place, is that final sign-off. Well, in this particular instance, we couldn't find the documentation of that final sign-off. In the end, the only thing you can

Public Accounts committee  I certainly don't believe that anybody would have launched this system if they really knew the mess it was going to end up being. I think they should have identified and known the size of that problem, with the issues that were known to them. But, again, there would be nothing t

Public Accounts committee  My comments are not about the public servants themselves. My comments are about the fact that I believe there is a culture problem that contributed to this. Again, yes, I agree with you on the two fundamental decision points that were the most obvious, that people could have iden

Public Accounts committee  Again, it isn't the public service that I'm trying to say is broken. It's that we are making them operate in a culture that can cause these types of incomprehensible failures. I certainly believe that our civil servants—the people who work here—are second to none, but we also hav

Public Accounts committee  Again, what I said in the message is that I think the short tenure of deputy ministers contributes to these types of problems. Yes, you can look at an average, but an average can cover up a lot of issues, but when you look at Public Services and Procurement Canada now, with the c

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our report on consular services to Canadians abroad. Joining me at the table is Carol McCalla, who was responsible for the audit. This audit examined how Global Affairs Canada responded to requests for consular as

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think there are a few aspects to that. Number one, as we said, is understanding the volume of transactions at each mission, and then having a way of making sure that the resources available are assigned to deal with those. Some of the cases that cause the

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it's very important for Global Affairs to understand the demand on their services. What services are being demanded? Where are those services being demanded, and how can they can meet them? I think one of the things that we also indicate in the report is that the move fro

Foreign Affairs committee  First, you gave a good overview of the problem. There are indeed problems with initial contact, that is, the way detained persons are contacted, and as to the training of officers in the department. We made some recommendations. In paragraph 52, we made the following recommenda

Foreign Affairs committee  It is hard to explain. Perhaps employees from the department could explain it better. We did find that, in those cases, officers from the department had indeed communicated with the persons directly affected when there were signs of torture. They contacted those persons in a tim

Foreign Affairs committee  We certainly didn't put that type of information in the report. I believe we did indicate that the department received, I believe, 5,000 requests for information. I'm just trying to find that—

Foreign Affairs committee  —and they responded very quickly to the requests they did get.

Foreign Affairs committee  I will start, and then Ms. McCalla can answer about standards. In paragraph 19 of our report, we particularly indicate that during Irma and Maria, which we say damaged 16 countries and territories—and we don't have the number of Canadians affected—the Emergency Watch and Respons

Foreign Affairs committee  That's an issue of government policy and whether the government wants to offer that type of service. What we've said is that the department needs to make sure it communicates as well as possible to Canadians who are travelling or living abroad about what types of services they

Foreign Affairs committee  I believe there is already a way for travellers to register with Global Affairs Canada. However, while there may be some motivation for people to register that they are travelling somewhere, they have, I suppose, less motivation to say they've come back. Sometimes that type of th