HANSARD
Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services
Ms. Diana Whalen (Chairman)
Mr. Leonard Preyra (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon
Ms. Becky Kent
Mr. Mat Whynott
Ms. Lenore Zann
Hon. Keith Colwell
Hon. Cecil Clarke
Mr. Chuck Porter
[Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon was replaced by Ms. Vicki Conrad]
[Ms. Lenore Zann was replaced by Mr. David Wilson, Sackville-Cobequid]
[Hon. Cecil Clarke was replaced by Hon. Christopher d'Entremont]
WITNESSES
Mr. Alan Horgan, Deputy Auditor General
Mr. Neil Ferguson, Legislative Counsel Office
Ms. Karen Kinley, Legislative Counsel Office
In Attendance:
Mrs. Darlene Henry
Legislative Committee Clerk
Ms. Sherri Mitchell
Legislative Comittees Office
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HALIFAX, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2009
STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
9:00 A.M.
CHAIRMAN
Ms. Diana Whalen
VICE-CHAIRMAN
Mr. Leonard Preyra
MADAM CHAIRMAN: As it's 9:05 a.m. right now, I'd like to get the meeting started. We're here this morning with the Public Accounts Committee and this is our first meeting of the Public Accounts Committee that has met in the last number of months. I'm wondering if the members could introduce themselves, beginning with Ms. Conrad.
[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, that's wonderful. This morning, as I said, is the first full meeting of our Public Accounts Committee. We are the only committee of the Legislature that meets here in the Legislature on a regular basis; our meetings are televised and we meet almost weekly. This, again, is a committee that is different than the others because it is chaired by a member of the Opposition, we don't have that in any of our other committees.
This morning on your agenda you'll see that I've asked both our Legislative Counsel and the Office of the Auditor General to give us a little update on their role as it pertains to this committee, so we will get to that as well.
There is a package of information that has been left with each member because we have some new members on the committee as well and some new members to the Legislature. We wanted to make sure that everybody had the mandate and background of the committee as well, so our Legislative Committees Office has prepared a package for the members. Those of you who are sitting in could perhaps share it with the others who are not here today; I think that's important.
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Normally our meetings will be two hours, but this is an unusual one because we haven't had our list of witnesses set up in advance. Last week, on September 2nd, we had our first meeting which was the Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedures. That committee has come forward with a list of five topics and I believe we expect that to take six weeks.
The first topic on the list is pandemic preparedness and it follows the Auditor General's Report that came out in July of this year, so we're following up on that. It includes a lot of recommendations, but also had touched on many areas. The committee's recommendation was that we hear not only from the Department of Health Promotion and Protection, but also from the Emergency Measures Organization which could be two separate meetings, and that's how it's presented to you today. I wonder, if you've had a chance to look at the list, if we could have a motion, Mr. Colwell.
HON. KEITH COLWELL: Madam Chairman, I would move the list as presented, items one through five.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Do we have a seconder for that?
MR. CHUCK PORTER: I second that.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Porter. Is there any discussion on the list of agenda items? Hearing none, I'll call for a vote of the committee so that we can have that endorsed.
Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.
The motion is carried.
That is, in fact, our first list and that will take us six weeks, it's our intention, of the committee meetings. In addition to that there is a note on your agenda as well referring to a couple of other things.
We had a request by the CCAF which is an organization - I think Darlene has included with it the little description of it. "The CCAF-FCVI is a non-profit Canadian research and education foundation dedicated to increasing knowledge about governance, management, audit and accountability in the public sector." That organization has provided training to other Public Accounts Committees across Canada and in fact when we looked at it, they have been here in Nova Scotia on a couple of occasions - 2001 was one time, I think; 2003 and in May 2005. On those occasions they've spoken to members of the Legislature about governance and this committee.
What they have offered is to come and do a one-day training program for members of the Public Accounts Committee and any other members of the Legislature who would like
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to attend. I think often other members do sit in, so it would be of value to any members of the Legislature. The committee discussed it last week, we liked the idea and we also think it's important to mention that our own Auditor General, Jacques Lapointe, is just a recent member of the board of CCAF, so in that regard too we would like to be able to make use of that organization and its knowledge.
I'm just looking to see if there is agreement from the committee members to go forward with that. If we're doing it we would do it outside of the House sitting, we'd like to do it sometime this Fall, but after the House is no longer sitting. So are all in favour of that? No comments? Okay, I think that's fine and we'll go forward with that.
Our first meeting of the committee is intended to be after we return from the CCPAC, which is the Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees. We have some representation from this province, including our clerk, Darlene Henry, who will be attending that and talking to other Public Accounts members from across the country. That happens next week so we're looking at September 23rd as the start date for this agenda, provided we can get people lined up for those dates. We will continue to meet as the House is sitting; I think that's the important message for those of us present today, so that's very good.
Again, we've passed the motion, so that's fine; we've got that in order. The support people for our committee are very important and I've asked if both the Legislative Counsel Office and our Auditor General's Office would give us a brief rundown on their role and how they interact with this committee, and how the committee supports the work of governance and just good practice in the Province of Nova Scotia. I thought that would be particularly important because we do have new members and I think even for those of us who sat on the committee for some time, it's important to remember the oversight role of this committee and the importance of it in terms of the governance and management of the province.
With that said, I'd like to ask - perhaps we'll start with our Legislative Counsel. Yes, sorry, a comment? Mr. Preyra.
MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Just before we go on, I notice in the witness list that we've got the Department of Health Promotion and Protection. I think we had agreed that the Auditor General would make a brief presentation and give us an overview and that the Department of Health would also be on that list.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: As witnesses.
MR. PREYRA: Yes.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: We did discuss that and that is just fine, I don't think there would be any objection to that. We felt that since the Auditor General's Report came in in the summer and our committee didn't have its normal opportunity - normally we would have
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an in camera and another public session with the Auditor General - that we would just allow 10 minutes or so for the Auditor General to introduce the subject to us. So I think that makes good sense in this regard, and to have among the witnesses the Department of Health, I think, would be fine, in case some of our questions go to that department. I'll leave that with Darlene to make sure that we have that done. Thanks so much.
So with that aside and that agenda now being in place, I'd like to see if we could have a few words from our Legislative Counsel. Mr. Hebb has sent his regrets today. Normally he would be here but it is a conflicting time.
MR. NEIL FERGUSON: Actually, he's sick, the other conflict was resolved, so you still get me.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Well, thank you, Mr. Ferguson, if you would take a few minutes.
MR. FERGUSON: Thank you, Madam Chairman. Again, I'm Neil Ferguson from the Office of the Legislative Counsel. We are the lawyers for the House of Assembly and that's how we end up providing support to this committee. There are four lawyers in the office. For a number of years, you may know, we've been operating with only three and I'd just like to take this opportunity to introduce Karen Kinley again. For those of you who were not here earlier to meet her, Karen is the newest lawyer in our office and we're all very happy to have her with us.
Our office, like the Auditor General, is independent; we're independent of the government, we're independent of any other Party. In addition to the drafting of legislation, we carry out the roles of what used to be known, before 1941 in Nova Scotia, as the law clerk. So we are both Legislative Counsel, working on legislation, and Parliamentary Counsel, providing legal advice and procedural advice to the House and its committees.
[9:15 a.m.]
We run some of the committees, such as the Law Amendments Committee and the Private and Local Bills Committee, but our role for the other committees is to provide whatever support we are asked to provide. So, as such, we don't necessarily attend all meetings of committees. You won't necessarily see us at every Public Accounts Committee meeting, unless we're asked to be here. Some committees don't ask us to attend very often at all. We tend, I think, to appear here in a support role more often than a lot of the other committees, except maybe the Human Resources Committee.
We provide, as I said, legal advice on things such as privileges of the House and especially as those relate to the committees. We are called on to deal with subpoenas if a
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committee wants to compel a person to attend, and also we provide advice on the compelling or production of documents and materials that the committee needs to do its work.
We have, over the last couple of years, done a number of fairly big opinions on those items so if any of the members want, if they're not already in your materials, we can certainly provide you with copies of those so that you can see the steps that are followed: when you want to subpoena somebody, compel somebody, who can and can't be subpoenaed by the committee, that type of information.
Again, our client is the House overall, so while we do provide assistance and advice to individual members, we're not the lawyers for the individual members. Our solicitor-client relationship is with the House of Assembly and we tend not to get into, if we can, disputes between members, obviously.
Usually when we prepare an opinion, it's requested through the chairman of the committee - that seems to be the more formal process. But we are always available, anyone can call us at any time. We have some BlackBerries, if you need to reach us in off-hours. I believe that summarizes our role with respect to this committee and the others, unless there are any questions.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Are there any questions at all from the committee members today? No. All right, then I think I will ask Mr. Horgan from the Auditor General's Office to give us a little overview of the important role that we have and the relationship between this committee and your office. Thank you, Mr. Horgan.
MR. ALAN HORGAN: Thank you and good morning to you all. First of all I'd like to pass on the regrets of the Auditor General. He would have very much liked to have been here this morning but he is out of province at the moment, so it's my pleasure to fill in.
I believe you all should have a one-page summary of my comments, as well as a little information card that the office prepared a few years ago, just to explain the mandate of the Office of the Auditor General.
My comments this morning are going to be relating to our role, the role of our office in general, the relationship of our office with the Public Accounts Committee. I have a few comments on reporting by the Auditor General and briefly mention some other services that our office provides to the Public Accounts Committee.
First and foremost, the role of the Auditor General is legislated. There is an Auditor General Act, it goes all the way back to 1973. At this moment we are pursuing some major revisions to our legislation and the Auditor General has been dealing with the legislation review committee on this matter. Actually, that began just last week.
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Our role is to provide assurance to the House of Assembly and the public concerning the operations of government, the use of public funds, and the integrity of government's financial and performance reporting. We do that by conducting audits of financial statements, governance and control systems throughout government, compliance with legislation and policy, as well as audits of efficiency, economy and effectiveness, quite often referred to as "value for money."
To fulfill this role, it is very, very critical that we remain independent from government. As was just mentioned about Legislative Counsel, our office is an office of the House of Assembly as well, we are not an agency of government. Our Act provides us certain means of maintaining this independence and independence is a key tenet of all auditing standards throughout the world - in Canada and internationally. Auditing is not considered to be valid unless it's performed by someone independent of the entity being audited. So for our office to provide any value to the House and to the public, we must not only be independent but be seen to be independent.
With respect to our relationship to the Public Accounts Committee, the committee is the means by which the Auditor General interacts with the House because the House is our client and, as I'll mention, we provide our reports to the House of Assembly. Of course, we can't have an ongoing dialogue with the House of Assembly in that format, however, we can use the Public Accounts Committee as a subset of the House of Assembly in order to have that kind of dialogue and provide information and service to the House.
The Auditor General exists to serve the accountability relationship between government and legislators which, by the way, is also a big role of the Public Accounts Committee. So our roles have a significant overlapping purpose.
Reporting by the Auditor General. We report to the House, as I mentioned, generally twice a year. We normally put out a report in the Spring and a report in the Fall. The dates can change, based on the progress of our audits. In fact, our next report is due to be tabled, or deemed tabled if the House is not in session, on December 9th. As well, we sometimes issue a special report if the matter that we're reporting on is very time-sensitive, something that really shouldn't wait until our next normally scheduled audit report. This was, in fact, the case with regard to our audit of pandemic planning, where we issued a special report on July 30th. We didn't think it was appropriate to wait until December because of the sensitivity of the whole topic and being able to report to the House earlier might mean getting some of our recommendations underway earlier.
Our office is always available to the Public Accounts Committee to brief them on our reports, either shortly before or shortly after they are tabled or deemed tabled -when I say shortly before or after, I mean on that day. Then it is standard practice of this committee to hold a session subsequent to the day of our tabling to publicly question the Auditor General on the contents of his report. We are proposing December 16th as a day that we would like
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for this to happen with respect to the report we want to table on December 9th. I know that will be a topic of discussion in this session.
In addition, the Auditor General provides a business plan and a performance report for his office to the Public Accounts Committee each year and is available to discuss the plans and performance of his office. This year was an unusual year in that we sent our business plan and performance report to all MLAs - because of the election, when we were ready to issue those reports there was no Public Accounts Committee, so we just sent it out to all MLAs. In the future, we will be providing those reports on an annual basis to this committee.
Other services that we provide to the committee - the Auditor General and\or other representatives of a senior management team will attend every meeting of this committee; we're available to answer questions. We provide information and advice to the committee on things such as the committee's agenda, where then you'll find that, of course, we would recommend that the committee follow up on some of the chapters in our reports. We can provide some advice on our understanding of government structures, processes and matters with respect to the annual meeting of the CCPAC and the Canadian Council of Legislative Auditors - mentioned earlier in this meeting - as well as with respect to the CCAF, which we have a long history being involved with.
Also, the Auditor General is available to discuss any matters relating to audit, public accountability or probably just about anything. He's available to any member of this committee, feel free to give him a call. His number is 424-4046.
As a final comment, I'll just mention that, of course, we have a Web site. We have our reports going back over a decade are on that Web site, as well as a lot of other information about our office. So that completes my comments and I'd be very glad to answer any questions if there are any.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Horgan and thank you for the handout as well. Are there any questions from members of the committee at this time?
What I'd like to do is thank you very much, both of you, for bringing information. I think the important thing and message for us as members is that you're available to provide advice, to answer questions and - in the case of the Auditor General - to perhaps provide more in-depth on some of the reports we receive and that's important for any member, particularly of this committee, to know.
Before I go on to the closing remarks, I would like to give an opportunity for two of our members who arrived a little bit late for the introductions and I was remiss, I did not return to you. I wonder if the two members could identify themselves for the record, introduce yourselves?
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[The two committee members introduced themselves.]
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Welcome to both of you. With that, we've really covered the business of the day. There was just one thing I wanted to mention before we go to adjournment and that was the structure of the committee so that everybody on the committee will be aware.
For the last 15 years, at least, this committee has offered equal time to the three Parties in questioning witnesses. Our decision and discussion at our Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedures was that that would continue. The precedent is there from 1993, under the John Savage Government, when it was a clear majority, that equal time be given to the Opposition members. It was actually a little bit less for the NDP at that time because, I believe, you had three members in the House at that time. But under John Savage's Government, beginning in 1999, we continued with equal time for all three Parties in this committee. So the decision has been to continue that, the precedent is strong. So that will be how we run it. We have a much more structured committee than many of the others and I think you could clearly say - more than any other committee of the Legislature - in that we do allot time in a very structured manner, the 20 minutes for each caucus in the first round of questioning; the second round, whatever time is left, we divide equally among the three caucuses; and we allow opening and closing statements for our witnesses. That will remain the same so those of you who have been here before and have followed it will be comfortable with that. So are there any questions or any comments on that?
If not, we'll look for a motion to adjourn and our next meeting will be on September 23rd. It will be dealing with pandemic planning.
MR. COLWELL: Move to adjourn.
MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much and we are adjourned.
[The committee adjourned at 9:28 a.m.]
