HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
Ms. Maureen MacDonald (Chair)
Mr. Chuck Porter (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Keith Colwell
In Attendance:
Ms. Mora Stevens
Legislative Committee Clerk
Mr. Jacques R. Lapointe
Auditor General of Nova Scotia
Mr. Claude Carter
Deputy Auditor General
HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2006
SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
9:00 A.M.
CHAIR
Ms. Maureen MacDonald
VICE-CHAIRMAN
Mr. Chuck Porter
MADAM CHAIR: Okay, if everybody is ready, I will call the meeting to order. You have the agenda. The purpose of today's meeting is to develop a bit of a witness list so that Mora can work on lining people up. Mr. Porter, welcome to our subcommittee and to the committee. I guess we should start first by telling you a little bit about the procedure. Generally speaking, I think we try to use consensus as much as possible here at the subcommittee in arriving at topics and process. It's not always possible, though, to have full agreement, and in the event that there isn't full agreement, it's basically majority rules.
In terms of developing our list, what we've done in the past - and I think Mr. Colwell can add to this because he has been a part of this committee for some time - we try, first of all, to focus on the common areas of agreement, where there is agreement, in the lists that are brought forward. Failing to find areas of common agreement, we will pick topics from each of the lists in order of priority, and we rotate around in terms of establishing what it is we're going to do. This, I think, is the process that we tend to use.
The other thing I would say - I know we're all very anxious to get back into the routine of examining government expenditures - is we haven't had an opportunity as either a subcommittee or as the Public Accounts Committee to sit down and hear from the Auditor General. He tabled his report when the Legislature wasn't in session and when the committees had more or less recessed for the summer. So I think we have to give consideration to having the Auditor General before the committee to actually speak to his report and answer questions that the members of the committee might have.
That's a very important thing, I would say, that would have to be done. Although that doesn't appear on any of the lists, I take that as more or less a given that we would do that, that it would be the very first thing we would do as we proceed.
First of all is there agreement on that, that that's one of the things we will do? The Auditor General, I see, is nodding, he's okay with that. Thank you very much, that's excellent. Do you have anything you would like to add at this stage or say at this stage?
MR. JACQUES LAPOINTE: No, I think you have covered the issue that we did miss the opportunity to address the committee, given the timing of the issuing of our report, so we will deal with that. I believe you were talking about tentatively scheduling on September 20th for us to do a session with you. I think it is wise to do that in camera so that we can have a candid exchange of views and open discussion, to help you to better decide where you want to focus your attention and we can easily answer your questions. Aside from that we will, of course, help wherever necessary with the process.
MADAM CHAIR: Can we explore a little further the idea of doing it in camera because generally speaking, I think the practice of the committee has been to operate in the open, with the media present. I'm certainly not opposed to having an in camera meeting, I understand that it offers certain opportunities to explore matters, but then it becomes problematic in terms of having the public really understand what the issues are around the Public Accounts and how we should proceed. So can we just deal with that a little bit further? Am I incorrect to say that hasn't always been our practice?
MS. MORA STEVENS (Legislative Committee Clerk): What has traditionally happened over the last few years is there is an in camera briefing session with the members the day the report is tabled, so they can be up to speed on exactly what's in it. Then it follows a week or two later with a public session, so there is time for the members to look over the report and, as the Auditor General mentioned, the in camera session gives the members a chance to ask questions they might not ask in public, and also the auditors to give those candid responses that they might not do in the Chamber. Then after that there's a public session that can be televised.
MADAM CHAIR: Are members of the subcommittee okay with that as our process?
Yes? Okay. Excellent then, we will proceed in that manner. Thank you.
Okay, so now we have in front of us lists of potential witnesses. We have the NDP caucus list and we have the Liberal Party caucus list. We may have, in the future, items from the PC caucus list. They haven't had an opportunity to meet as a caucus to discuss this. So the floor is open now for discussion about the items on this list and how you would like to proceed. Mr. Colwell.
MR. KEITH COLWELL: I would like to see us look at the SAP implementation process in the Department of Finance and through all departments of government. There was some brief discussion about that, if I recall, in the Legislature during estimates. It appears that the cost of this has run way, way over where it should be and it raises some questions, so it would be nice to have the Department of Finance - and I wouldn't limit this to just the Department of Finance because every department may have a cost incurred with this that's not shown at the Department of Finance . . .
[9:15 a.m.]
MADAM CHAIR: Is this the computerized system that's in the Auditor General's Report?
MR. COLWELL: Yes.
MADAM CHAIR: Okay, thank you. This would be your priority item then, in other words, this is where you would start.
MR. COLWELL: Yes.
MADAM CHAIR: Do you have any response to that or do you have a priority item at this stage?
MR. CHUCK PORTER: No, my question was exactly that, is the list, both your lists, the priority in which you want to see things flow?
MADAM CHAIR: The NDP caucus list is in the priority in which we have established the things that we would like to have looked at, examined.
MR. COLWELL: Ours are, too.
MADAM CHAIR: Yours are as well, yes.
MR. PORTER: We have caucus today. I will try to send back, later today or tomorrow, a list from our caucus, if there is, in fact, one going to be brought forward; if not, I will advise of that as well.
That's fine at this point in time but I will take it back and again, I will provide a list for us.
MADAM CHAIR: Okay. Well, I would suggest - I'm just looking at the list from the Liberal caucus and I don't know that there are a lot of common areas. There may be a few common areas; I see road and highway construction and maintenance is a common area between your list and our list, for example. Student assistance, the Department of Education, is a common area on these lists, No. 7. I think that's mostly it.
I would say, then, if we took the top items from the lists we have in front of us, Conserve Nova Scotia and the Department of Finance, the SAP, and we ask the clerk to proceed with trying to get those onto the schedule for the Fall, that would be useful, that will get us started.
MR. COLWELL: That will get us started and give the PC caucus time to get their list in.
MADAM CHAIR: Right, and then we can take their top priority as well. Then, depending on what else is on that list, we can look at the Department of Education, for example, and what have you. If we are having the Department of Finance in to talk about SAP, people aren't necessarily limited to discussing that so it may give us an opportunity to look at the HST but we'll see if that's possible. Okay? It might be a lot to chew in one meeting.
MS. STEVENS: And Finance would prefer something that's right on topic . . .
MADAM CHAIR: Yes, that they can handle.
MS. STEVENS: . . . because they really do put a lot of preparation into it and it would be different staff, so for them it would be better, I know.
MADAM CHAIR: Yes, okay. So we will get the PC caucus list when we have a chance. Is there anything else you want to say about these lists? That sort of gets us started, we have the lists, we will get the government caucus list and we will have a subcommittee meeting subsequently, after we're underway, to deal with further items.
MR. CLAUDE CARTER: Just a quick point on the SAP implementation. You would have to invite Finance as well as the Economic Development people from the SAP project office, because the SAP implementation across government is now being coordinated through that office, which reports to the Business Technology Advisory Committee of government.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much, Mr. Carter, for that point, it's a good point.
MR. LAPOINTE: Madam Chair, if I could add to that. In terms of that SAP, Chapters 3 and 4 in our report deal with that specifically in terms of its - there are commonalities with other systems as well. We were dealing primarily with the weaknesses over the years that we have reported in the systems there, in the financial controls, and the computer access and security. It was a concern to us because of the broad spread of the system.
There are also related issues that we found in DHAs in their financial systems and also in Community Services, so the issue of computerized financial systems actually is broader and might lead to other areas. That definitely is covered in our report as part of an internal control and computer access weakness.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you. I think that once we get underway we will have an opportunity to talk about whether we want to add to the witness list, for example, from those other departments that Mr. Lapointe just referred to.
Is there anything else under that agenda item, potential witnesses?
MR. COLWELL: This is fine, what you have decided, I totally agree with you and the committee on that. What steps do we take next about the situation we went through with Magic Valley and these guys last year? What do we do? That issue is still not dead. I know the subpoenas and all that stuff were all over with when the Legislature adjourned and all this ended, but that's still an issue. I just wondered what we should do with that.
MADAM CHAIR: Well, I think that's a very good point. The next logical step would be for this committee, for the subcommittee, probably myself as the chair of the subcommittee in consultation with committee members, to write a short report, to bring the report to the Public Accounts Committee for approval or whatever, and to take it to the House of Assembly when we resume. To me, that would be the logical step. I think Legislative Counsel advised us that ultimately the committee itself has no power, in terms of enforcing the warrants, but the Legislature does have the power to either enforce or to sanction. Certainly we can proceed in that manner. I wouldn't be opposed to moving in that direction.
MR. PORTER: I think that's probably fine. The report, as you said, would have to go to the Legislature for any action anyway in the future. So we probably should have a report on what has taken place, as far as we're concerned.
MR. COLWELL: I think that's a good approach, but make sure you check with our legal counsel to make sure we can still do this. Because the Legislature has been adjourned, do we have to put this back on our agenda? So the whole committee could say, yes, we're going to do this, and then bring it forward, or whatever process he says we would have to do. This has been quite complicated and drawn out, as we all know.
MS. STEVENS: From what I understand, once the writ is dropped, the issues die, but that's not to say that the committee cannot go back and use that as information that they have gathered. They couldn't go right back in, if a report was written partway and then finish it. It has to come up as a new issue. So it has to be looked at. Legislative Counsel can certainly give the best advice on how that should be done. All issues do die with the dropping of that writ, but there should be a process by which you could bring that back.
MR. COLWELL: Maybe when you check with him he could send us a letter, all of the subcommittee members, just to indicate what the process should be to make sure we don't do anything that voids what we really want to accomplish.
MADAM CHAIR: That's not a problem. I think that probably in the interest of having everything well documented I will write a letter to Gordon, and then we will hear back from him, and then we'll proceed in that way so it's all clear.
MR. PORTER: You will copy us on that letter?
MADAM CHAIR: Absolutely. The final item on our agenda is the CCPAC that's happening in a few days' time. Mora, do you want to speak to that, please?
MS. STEVENS: As you are aware, the conference is coming up this weekend. It's going to be a full house, from what I understand, in P.E.I. I'm in the process of writing the opening statement, and of course you're aware that the conference itself and the agenda planners have asked the committee to do something on the warranting of documents. Neil Ferguson had done it for the Clerks at the Table Conference. I just received what he did yesterday, so I am incorporating that into something that's non-partisan, that just sort of outlines a chronology of what happened.
What usually happens at the conference is that if you have an issue, you would give a chronology of the issue, and I'll have all the backup documentation there to go with it. Then it's opened for questions around the conference table. They'll say, has this happened in any other province, what have you done, and then it sort of becomes a group discussion on the issue. That's what I was looking at doing, since Neil had already done a wonderful chronology and it's just a matter of going through it and putting proper names to it, and sort of outlining a little bit more of what the committee did and the steps. So it's very non-partisan. As I said, I received it yesterday, and I'll be working on it today, and hopefully will have it out to all the subcommittee members either by this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest.
MADAM CHAIR: Thank you very much. Is there anything further on this?
MS. STEVENS: Just one other issue, I don't know if you know about the Chamber. The Legislative Chamber, they were doing work on it this summer. They were doing re-wiring and they've run into a structural problem. The Chamber is not going to be available to the committee until late October or early November. It's literally empty right now, the floors are up, they are going to have to do some structural work.
Anyway, I just wanted to let the committee know because that's going to mean public hearings of this committee, the size - I'm not sure if they are suited for this room. It might mean the Red Chamber for public hearings, I'm not really certain, that's a matter of course that can be discussed with the full committee. I just wanted to let you know that that affects certainly not only the Fall sitting of the House, but what's going to happen with the committee.
MADAM CHAIR: Okay, we can also discuss this, we can consult back and forth as things are scheduled.
MR. COLWELL: I think it's up to the chair, personally, where you're going to hold the meetings. It makes it a whole lot easier.
MADAM CHAIR: So is there any other item of business?
MR. COLWELL: I move that we adjourn.
MADAM CHAIR: We stand adjourned. Thank you very much, that was great, a good way to start.
[The subcommittee adjourned at 9:27 a.m.]
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