Public Accounts committee  I'm not going to tell the committee how to carry out its business. What I can tell you is that there are rules that already exist around public servants needing to disclose whether they have other employment income sources. That disclosure is meant to ensure that there isn't a co

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry. I'm unable to do that. I didn't do it at the time, and I would not be able to speculate on whether individuals quarantining had an impact.

Public Accounts committee  When it comes to talking about value of ArriveCAN, I would put it into two buckets: the value we saw during the pandemic and the value that would endure should the app continue to be used for automating the immigration and custom declaration forms. Back in 2021, we did two audit

Public Accounts committee  I have not. Typically, I do brief some of the ministers prior to releasing a report so they are well equipped with respect to what the findings will be. In this case, I kept that briefing quite tight and did not actually brief the Treasury Board before the report on ArriveCAN. I

Public Accounts committee  If I may, I will clarify to the member that I have not issued a report on McKinsey. I believe the report you're talking about was one the comptroller general's office did by asking all of the internal audit shops. I will have a report on professional services contracts coming out

Public Accounts committee  No, because the Department of National Defence was not part of the ArriveCAN app. What I could link to our findings, as we talked about when it comes to disclosure around invitations and gifts, is that there are rules around disclosures when a public servant might enter into an

Public Accounts committee  I can see that the chair would like to take over, but maybe we could just give the deputy a chance to say something.

Public Accounts committee  It's my understanding that Mr. MacDonald was there for the first year and Mr. Utano was there much longer. Our audit period covered from January 2019 all the way till January 2023, which is much longer than his tenure at the Canada Border Services Agency, and we did see that some

Public Accounts committee  I will start. I think the deputy auditor general would like to jump in on this as well. Everyone we interview or speak to during the course of an audit and every piece of evidence we are given, we consider. That is from day one right up until the last day. Nothing is ever done f

Public Accounts committee  I think I would point to some of the work that my office has previously done, some of which was on access of vulnerable populations to programs. We identified the need for the government to really understand the barriers that certain populations face, whether they be remote or in

Public Accounts committee  The procurement system in the federal public service is complex. There are so many rules. I agree that at times the complexity of trying to compete to get a contract makes it difficult for smaller vendors, which is why I am concerned that the reaction to the findings around Arriv

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for again inviting us to discuss our report on ArriveCAN. I would like to acknowledge that this hearing is taking place on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. This audit examined whether the Canada Border Services Agency, th

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry. I have to admit that I'm not sure what the question was in the end, but I can tell you that we do the financial audit of the bridge, the corporation. When it comes to funding, that is a government decision that's made. We simply audit the financial statements of the br

Public Accounts committee  We wouldn't specifically target that. We don't have that slated as a performance audit. We would look at the management of the public-private partnership when we do the financial statement audit of the bridge.

Public Accounts committee  What I could offer up is that, during the audit of the ArriveCAN app, we found that some of the contracts that were issued invoked the national security emergency exemption, which means that certain requirements in the normal procurement processes don't have to happen—certain com