:
I call the meeting to order. Good morning. I see we have a few people on Zoom as well.
Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(g), the committee is meeting today to receive a briefing from the Auditor General and her team concerning the reports that were tabled in the House on Tuesday, May 31.
Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of November 25, 2021. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
[Translation]
Pursuant to the directive of the Board of Internal Economy of March 10, 2022, all those attending the meeting in person must wear a mask, except for members in their seats during parliamentary proceedings.
To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules for witnesses and members to follow. Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself and please keep your microphone muted when you are not speaking.
[English]
For interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.
I would remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.
[Translation]
Members in the room who wish to speak must raise their hand. Members participating via Zoom must use the “raise hand” function.
The committee clerk and I will do our best to maintain a consolidated order of speaking. Thank you for your patience and your understanding.
[English]
We will be taking 15 minutes at the end of the meeting for some committee business in camera. I'll notify you of that when we hit that time on the clock.
I'd now like to welcome our witnesses—our guests—from the Office of the Auditor General. Of course, we have Karen Hogan, the Auditor General of Canada. It's nice to see you again. Actually, it's nice to see you all again.
We also have Carey Agnew, principal; Carol McCalla, principal; and Nicholas Swales, principal.
Ms. Hogan, you have the floor, and then we'll turn to questions. Thank you, again.
I wish to acknowledge the lands we are gathered on are part of the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people.
I'm pleased to be here to discuss four performance audit reports that were tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday. My reports also include copies of the special examination of Farm Credit Canada and the Federal Bridge Corporation Limited. These two reports were made public by the Crown corporations in February and May of this year.
I am accompanied today by Carey Agnew, Carol McCalla and Nicholas Swales, the principals who were responsible for the performance audits.
As I near the third year of my mandate, I'm feeling more frustrated than hopeful. As much as I'd like to report that government programs and services improve once weaknesses are identified, I find that is seldom the case.
[Translation]
For us, the story is too often familiar—over years of auditing, we report slow progress and results that are stagnant or worsening. Information that could help Canadians understand whether results are getting better or worse is at best incomplete. In many programs and departments, it seems that too often people run into barriers when accessing programs and services they are entitled to.
Let me turn first to our audit of systemic barriers in correctional services. We wanted to know whether Correctional Service Canada delivered interventions that reflect the ever growing diversity of the offender population. This included whether corrections staff had the cultural awareness and sensitivity to deliver programs that meet the diverse needs of offenders.
While we set out to look at whether the department was meeting the needs of its offender population, what we found were outcomes showing that certain groups of offenders were disadvantaged by systemic barriers that affected their timely access to parole. In particular, we found that indigenous and Black offenders experienced poorer outcomes than any other groups in the correctional system. They also faced greater barriers to a safe and gradual reintegration into society.
[English]
A systemic barrier results from seemingly neutral policies, procedures or practices that disadvantage one or more groups. We found not only systemic barriers, but also, in my view, systemic racism in certain instances where those seemingly neutral policies, procedures or practices have persisted and have resulted in disproportionately different treatment of some groups of racialized offenders.
Correctional Service Canada has failed to identify and eliminate the systemic barriers that persistently disadvantaged indigenous and Black offenders in custody. We raised similar issues in our audits in 2015, 2016 and 2017, yet the department has done little to change the policies, practices, tools and approaches that produce these differing outcomes.
We found that barriers were present from the moment offenders entered federal institutions. For example, indigenous and Black offenders were assigned to maximum security institutions by staff at twice the rate of other groups of offenders. They also remained in custody longer and at higher levels of security before their release.
[Translation]
We also found that timely access to correctional programs designed to prepare offenders for release and support their successful reintegration into the community had continued to decline over our three past audits.
By December 2021, with the additional impact of the COVID‑19 pandemic, only 6% of men offenders had accessed programs they needed before they were first eligible to apply for parole.
Different outcomes for certain groups of racialized and indigenous offenders have persisted for too long.
[English]
Correctional Service Canada must identify and remove systemic barriers to eliminate systemic racism in corrections, including meeting its own commitment to better reflect the diversity of the offender population in its workforce.
The department needs to address representation gaps, namely, indigenous representation across all institutions, gender representation in women's institutions and representation at institutions with a higher number of Black offenders.
Next I will turn to our audit of hard-to-reach populations. We wanted to know whether the federal government ensured that individuals in low-income groups could access the Canada child benefit, the Canada workers benefit, the guaranteed income supplement and the Canada learning bond.
[Translation]
The Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada know that not everyone who could receive these benefits is getting them. These individuals who may be unaware of benefits available to them include low-income groups who are not easily served through regular channels: indigenous persons, seniors, newcomers to Canada, and persons with disabilities. These hard-to-reach populations often face one or more barriers to access benefits. As such, they require more help from government.
The Canada Revenue Agency and Employment and Social Development Canada lacked a clear and complete picture of the people who are not accessing benefits. The agency and the department also did not know whether most of their targeted outreach activities had helped to increase the benefit take‑up rates for hard-to-reach populations.
[English]
We also found that the agency and the department overstated the rates of people accessing benefits because they did not always account for people who had not filed income tax returns, a requirement to access most benefits. Though the agency and the department have taken some action, they still lack a comprehensive plan to connect people with benefits. As a result, they are failing to improve the lives of some individuals and families who may need these benefits the most.
Our third audit focused on the processing of disability benefit claims for veterans from the Canadian Armed Forces and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Overall, we found that veterans waited almost 10 months for a decision when first applying for benefits. Processing timelines were longer for francophones, women and RCMP veterans.
[Translation]
We also found that the department's data on how it processes benefits applications—and the organization of this data—were poor. Because of this, Veterans Affairs Canada was unable to determine whether its initiatives to improve the treatment of claims have sped up the process or made it worse.
We noted that both the funding and almost half of the employees on the team responsible for processing applications were temporary. The department also lacked a long-term staffing plan. The combined impact of these shortcomings means that veterans are waiting too long to receive benefits. They experience unacceptable delays that can significantly impact their and their families' well-being.
Our last report today is a follow‑up on our 2015 audit on the use of gender-based analysis plus in government, or GBA+. This is an analysis tool to help reduce existing and potential inequalities based on gender and other intersecting identity factors.
Overall, our audit showed that the government does not know whether its actions are achieving better gender equality outcomes for diverse groups of people. In many cases, the analysis had been completed, but we did not see a concrete impact on outcomes.
[English]
We found long-standing challenges that we previously identified continue to hinder the full implementation of GBA+ across government. Although the lead organizations have addressed some of our recommendations from 2015, many others date back to our first audit of GBA in 2009.
Some of the challenges include gaps in the capacity to perform a gender-based analysis and the lack of data available on demographic factors. In addition, we found that the government doesn’t know if GBA+ is achieving its goals, because its impacts have not been measured and reported on in a consistent and structured manner. The Privy Council Office, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and Women and Gender Equality Canada need to better collaborate and ensure that all departments and agencies fully integrate GBA+ in a way that produces real results for all Canadians.
To sum it up, these audits point to long-standing problems and barriers across a broad range of government activities. These barriers are unacceptable, whether faced by indigenous and Black offenders or by low-income individuals and veterans accessing benefits.
As to the barriers that GBA+ is meant to break down, while there is a greater dialogue and awareness today of gender and identity factors, actions have yet to catch up with words.
[Translation]
The federal government must do better. All of Canada's people, no matter their gender, race, ability or geographical location, deserve better—much better.
Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening statement.
We would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good morning to everybody there in person.
Ms. Hogan, thank you for the work you and your team do. I have always said that I value your work and the work of the Auditor General's office, especially now. I think your comments have been blunt and frank, and resemble what lots of Canadians are feeling when it comes to the details of these reports and the quality of work being done by the government in the past couple of years.
I note that yesterday you said, “It's very frustrating and discouraging for the government to know, for many years, that problems exist, that barriers exist, but that little action is taken”. I think these reports are timely right now, because I know, as a member of Parliament with a constituency office, that customer service levels and response times are absolutely collapsing, frankly, as we come out of the pandemic. There were challenges accommodating and adjusting to the pandemic when it started, but as we come out of it and get back to a semblance of normalcy and return to normalcy.... I think of the services we deal with in our office: CRA, Service Canada, IRCC, Veterans Affairs, Passport Canada, NEXUS, the list goes on. We're seeing an absolute collapse and a total unpreparedness for trends and things that are going along.
Some of the observations that I have, just at the high level to your reports, which I appreciate, are how it backs up that spending money is not a result. I think you allude to this in your conclusions and observations in several of your reports. Very often we call for action from the government on addressing, for example, the backlogs for processing claims for veterans. They say that we're spending x number of millions of dollars to address this, and at the end of the day, the frank reality is that we're spending more and now getting less. The value for money and the per capita of this, frankly, is not matching the rhetoric or the responses that we get. We're not seeing leadership. We're not seeing good management, and we're not seeing innovation really happening. It needs to be happening in what we're doing here.
Frankly, I can foreshadow, Ms. Hogan...without prejudicing your future worker decisions on what to study. Look, for example, at NEXUS cards. It's been in the news recently. Our office is dealing with this. There are no plans, no timelines and 300,000 applications backlogged. There's absolute chaos, at three years into the pandemic—let alone adjusting to that type of program during the pandemic. As we return to normal, there's still literally no leadership or plan, or anything.
I want to focus my first round, perhaps, on your report on Veterans Affairs and processing disability claims for veterans. I want to quote here from this report. You mentioned in your press conference and in the report that you were “left with the conclusion that the government has failed to meet a promise that it made to our veterans, that it would take care of them if they were injured in service”. That's a pretty bold statement and, rightfully, an accurate and important statement to understand the context of this.
One of the things that were very frustrating was not only the details of the report confirming what we're hearing from veterans and from constituents across the country, but also the response from the and the Department of Veterans Affairs. There was a CBC News article report that said, “The department said it accepted the criticism and recommendations but also blamed delays on a 40 per cent increase in the number of applications across the board and 75 per cent increase in first-time applications.”
Here's what frustrates me, and I'd like to get your comments on this. When preparing and using data and trends when it comes to Veterans Affairs and applications, the federal government should be able to look, for example, at another department—the Department of National Defence—to know the number of Canadians who are serving, who have injuries, their ages and the demographics to understand and be able to prepare and predict when a surge in services is coming.
Could you speak a little bit about the department's ability? Are they doing anything in terms of looking at what future trends in service levels and volumes may be? Is there anything you saw in your work that would suggest they're planning ahead appropriately for this?
Many thanks to the witnesses for joining us, especially Ms. Hogan.
Ms. Hogan, thank you for your statement, which was very clear, as my colleagues previously pointed out. At the outset, you said you were more frustrated than hopeful. That first sentence is especially important, as it reflects the state of mind of many people in Canada, in Quebec, and even here, in committee. We realize that, in many cases, the government has not followed up and, more importantly, it has not taken public interest into account. It is showing a lack of desire or willingness to improve and provide Canadians with better services.
I want to remind everyone that your work is fundamental to a healthy democracy. You said it was important to have a government that takes care of those who are the most vulnerable, and I think my colleagues share this opinion. However, your reports unfortunately show the government's serious inadequacies in that area.
I would like to talk specifically about the treatment of veterans, which you have already discussed.
At a meeting of the Standing Committee on Veterans, my colleague Mr. Desilets pointed out that there was an abysmal discrepancy between the processing of francophone applications and the processing of anglophone applications. In other words, it takes much longer to process francophone applications than anglophone applications.
Have you noted those kinds of cases in the past? Have you noticed that discrepancy?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for being present with us today.
What we see here are four very damning reports that I think our ministries and the government have known about. You said that in your opening statement. They've known about these issues persisting. What I have to say is that, in many ways, the people who are experiencing this discrimination have known about it for far longer. People with disabilities and the indigenous community members have been saying this for decades and decades.
This level of systemic discrimination is overt. It's dangerous and it's killing people. I know this. In my community in Edmonton Griesbach, and I'm sure in every single constituency here, we have people in our communities, every single one of us, who are being impacted by the systemic problems that continue to plague our public service. It's literally killing people.
I want to thank you, Auditor General, for outlining what I think is a terrible process and a lack of accountability in our systems. On the fact that you've had to table these multiple times, I can feel your level of frustration. I understand that level of frustration deeply from my own experience of interacting with these systems. We can even just look around this room and know that a GBA+ analysis is probably warranted in every single ministry. Understanding what that looks like and ways to actually improve it are things that I'm concerned about.
The fact that these issues persist and they continue to persist is eroding our trust in these public institutions. I'm concerned about how we regain that trust with the community members who are cited in these reports, in particular indigenous and Black community members and persons with disabilities. We know, not just from these reports but from their own experiences, that these issues persist.
When I looked at some of these reports, I couldn't help but feel that we've more than failed these populations. Our government has, and subsequent governments since as early as 2009. It breaks my heart to think that we could have done so much more in those times. These recommendations could have helped people in those times from 2009 to today, which is a long period of time. We're talking about people's lives at the end of the day here and about how we can actually make them better.
I'm concerned with the fact that oftentimes, especially in my short and limited time in this place, I've already found that there's an incredible amount of information but so little action. There is so little action that it makes me incredibly frustrated.
I can only sympathize with you, Ms. Hogan, and understand that your role in this is incredibly difficult, knowing that you'll be coming to this committee, like many times before in the last three years, and you'll likely be facing the same answer: We hear you. We're going to shelve this report. We're going to look at it real good. It's going to be awesome. We can't wait for your next one.
That's 99% likely what's going to happen here, but that's not what should happen here. That's the problem. I challenge my colleagues and the government to really take seriously what these reports really mean. I'm going to work with you folks to make these things better. We're all standing ready to work with you to make this better, but why aren't they getting better?
That's my question to you, Ms. Hogan: How can we actually enforce some of this? Canadians don't deserve this. People with disabilities shouldn't have to go through extraordinary hoops and hurdles to get the basic services they're entitled to. Indigenous peoples should not be incarcerated at the rate they are by folks who have obviously learned the language of GBA+ but are not acting on that information. I'm wondering how we actually enforce change in these institutions, because it's near criminal.
:
That's a tentacle to answer. There are many ways that the department would be subject to follow up.
I will start with our office, and then I will go to their departmental audit committee, and I will actually speak about the public accounts committee. Our office often will turn back and look at audits in which we found the results to be so significant that they warranted our going back. For example, today you're looking at audits that involved repeat subjects.
We also recognize that we can't necessarily devote all of the resources to follow-ups if there are so many other aspects of government operations that we would like to audit, so we have launched a new product called the results measurement follow-up. It's an online product that's on our website. We are trying slowly but surely to add more departments and more results, but it is our intention to start following up just on specific measures or specific recommendations over time. That would be one way for us to keep applying pressure.
The departmental audit committees of all departments and agencies are required under a Treasury Board standard to follow up on any recommendations that the department receives, whether they be from internal audits or external audits including ours, so their departmental audit committee should be following up on the progress that management is making on their commitments and their action plans.
As well, the public accounts committee and the environment committee recently adopted the same motion you have, stating that every entity that comes here is required to provide a detailed action plan in response to our recommendations.
Following up, perhaps, on those action plans on a regular basis might be another way to keep applying pressure on departments to demonstrate whether or not they are taking action, but I will caution that we're seeing in these reports that taking action doesn't always translate into better positive outcomes for Canadians. The focus of the follow-ups should really be on improved outcomes and not just on whether or not processes were changed or modified.
Ms. Hogan, I appreciate your echoing my first round of questions about the context of spending more and getting less, the value for money and the premise of that, which is much appreciated.
I share the frustration, and we see this constantly through these reports on not sharing data, data trends and data information. It particularly hits home for the “Processing Disability Benefits for Veterans” report. This shows a culture and mindset where the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs Canada aren't sharing information on those who are enlisting or those who have injuries and the age and demographics in order to understand these future trends.
This uptick in demand and applications should not be a surprise at all. The data should be there to know staffing levels and all this information, the number of veterans, when they're leaving, all these types of things. It's completely ignored and, as you alluded to, there's a hesitancy to share information. Frankly, it's almost a culture of lack of respect or compassion between the two departments that this is not shared.
I want to go specifically in my time here to report number 2 on veterans disability claims. There was a part that was really disturbing to me. I'll be a bit blunt in the question I'm asking, but in section 2.35, it says, “We also found that Veterans Affairs Canada did not always calculate its performance against its service standard consistently and accurately.” It goes on to say, “For the end date, the department used the date that the benefits decision was made”, but in some cases they didn't talk about the assessment step and other steps that go after the end date for the veteran—to your point—being successfully concluded and having their case done.
I'm going to ask you a blunt question, if I could, Ms. Hogan. Do you believe that is data manipulation? Do you believe it's unethical for the department's report to use an “end date” when they know very well that's not the actual end date for the veteran getting the service?
:
I will address your first comment first, and then I will get to your question.
One item I want to highlight about the lack or hesitancy of willingness to share information is that, oftentimes in these reports and in other previous reports, we hear privacy concerns as a reason the information isn't shared. I can appreciate that it's complex, but as a Canadian, if you sit back, you believe that you are interacting with your government and you would hope that there would be a way for the government to perhaps solve some of those issues.
When it comes to the end date, I do not believe that it was intentional manipulation of a date to deceive individuals. I believe that it was more of a focus on process. The start date doesn't start until all the information is gathered, so a veteran may have submitted their application and there may be weeks that go into a back-and-forth between the department and the veteran to make sure that the file is complete. Then you have to wait a little bit for some medical information. Then the clock starts ticking but, for the veteran, that application has already been in the queue, in their minds, for quite some time.
The same then happens at the end as you wait for the payment of the funds or the confirmation of the type of injury that was being classified. It's about giving the veteran a realistic picture of how long they're going to wait, instead of a service standard that hasn't been met in seven years.
It's about being more transparent, perhaps, about all the steps and the processes that would help a veteran better understand.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I just want to begin by addressing my Liberal colleague's comment on room to improve. I think this room is far greater than that comment provides. This is, I think, a very serious situation that's provided by the government, and it has mounted. This is really a situation in which the whole house, not just one room, needs to be improved. This is an extreme situation.
Our country's most disadvantaged, as you mentioned, are being left alone to deal with these kinds of violences and barriers by themselves. The core of what this committee and our work here provide must be showing the government with urgency how this must seize their attention immediately.
We can't continue to disadvantage these groups for so long. I don't want to have to sit here for another decade and have to talk about the same thing Ms. Hogan mentioned. Some of these issues have persisted since 2009. That's just not acceptable.
I think that comment diminishes in many ways the reality of the severity of this and the people who are being left behind.
My riding is one of the largest in terms of its urban indigenous population. It's also plagued by a massive amount of poverty. Community members in my city have done extraordinary work to actually do this work on the ground level without the government. They've provided for themselves and tried their best to survive. They're literally selling bottles and doing what they can to feed themselves.
This is the condition in which we're seeing people in my community suffering right now. Without community members supporting each other, we wouldn't have a community where I'm from. It's really because of each other that it's happening.
Your report says really clearly that the outreach activities that ESDC conducted with indigenous communities were inadequate. Those were largely for rural communities. I just want to ask, given the fact that a majority of indigenous people now live in urban centres, how are they being consulted and did your report look at the condition of those populations as hard to reach?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to follow up on a similar topic that I addressed previously. To remind everyone, it's about access to services, particularly the hard-to-reach-populations portion. There are many kinds of ways people can face barriers. There are racial barriers, but there are also persons with disabilities. Sometimes there are both or multiple barriers. There can also be gender inequities present in that.
Considering that, I'm thinking of community members in my city. We have 3,200 houseless folks. It's a massive population that is completely unserviced. When I go and talk to these folks, they often don't have ID. They don't have some of the basic things that these programs often demand in order to provide support.
Thinking about how we can do better to service these populations, I think of some of the models that have been employed by Indigenous Services Canada, such as going to hard-to-reach, remote communities in person, for example, and saying, “Here are some programs”. However, that's not very successful, considering the mistrust that's often there between the government and community members. However, that's an aside to my question.
For those who may be experiencing very real barriers to access to these services, such as persons with disabilities, is there a specific process that the departments take, if any, in order to better consult or to better inform those people—who may be living with a disability—about these programs?
There are two things I want to say right off the bat. I share Ms. Hogan's assessment of the public service. I think the goodwill and the desire to do better is definitely there, but it's part of all of our jobs to help that happen.
[Translation]
I would simply add that it was encouraging to hear the term “systemic racism” a number of times today. Unfortunately, it is not something we hear often.
It must be recognized that systemic racism is more than merely calling someone rude names. Systemic racism is truly rooted in our institutions, laws, regulations, processes, and so forth. GBA+ is a tool that allows us to uncover it.
[English]
I want to go to the report that is a follow-up on the gender-based analysis plus tool.
Through you, Chair, I'd like to get Ms. Hogan's assessment of where we are with that tool, which has been evolving over at least 20 to 25 years plus. Canada may have come a little later to the game, but how are we doing in relation to our peers in the OECD, for example?
Again, I want to thank the witnesses for being present.
I know that this is our final round. We don't often have the pleasure of seeing all of you, so it means a lot that you're present today on what I think is really an important set of work. I think the theme, if we could summarize it in some way, Mr. Chair, is that of the overt systemic barriers that continue to plague our public service and continue to create irreparable harm to Canadians across the country, particularly those who are the most vulnerable.
On behalf of the folks who are watching this, of course, and all the people who are experiencing this, it's only fair, I believe, that your reports have tabled recommendations that call on the government to do better in a whole swath of regions. My only hope, and my challenge, in many ways, is that we actually get this done.
I've mentioned in my previous statements how I believe it's overwhelmingly likely that the reports will be put on a shelf somewhere, but I hope to be proven wrong on that. That's the reality. That's just the truth of how these reports have been treated in the past. I don't want to see that.
I believe that your office and your institution have an incredibly important role in our country, and when we do not heed the advice of your office, which is independent of our partisanship.... It's important that we all listen and that we take seriously how important those recommendations are, and that we don't defend the fact that we have these other data points like the three cents—with all due respect to Ms. Shanahan. That's important, of course, but the reality is present to us that it's not working. It's not enough. We need to have stronger data points. We actually need to have follow-up, and we actually need to have accountability. That is what's important here to me.
I really thank you for being present. I don't know how much more time I have, but I wanted to relay that, if there are any other comments that you or any of your colleagues want to make mention of, I'll yield my time to you and your colleagues.