:
I'd like to call the meeting to order.
Bienvenue à tous. Colleagues, pursuant to the Standing Orders, today's meeting will deal with all chapters of the December 2008 Report of the Auditor General of Canada.
I should point out that we also have with us today, and we're very pleased to have with us, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr. Scott Vaughan, as well as Mrs. Fraser, of course, the Auditor General. She is accompanied by Mr. Neil Maxwell, the Assistant Auditor General.
Mrs. Fraser, welcome to the committee. Mr. Maxwell and Mr. Vaughan, welcome to the committee. And welcome to everyone else.
There is no other department or agency here. We're just going to hear from the Auditor General on the eight chapters that were tabled in Parliament last week. As well, if anyone has any questions or comments on the five chapters from the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, he is here also for the purpose of answering any questions.
Without any further delay, I'm going to ask the Auditor General for her opening remarks.
We are very pleased to present our December 2008 reports, which were tabled in the House of Commons last week. The tabling of these reports, as you know, was delayed because Parliament was prorogued, so most of the audit work we are reporting on was completed in the spring of 2008.
Again this year, our report to Parliament reflects the diversity and complexity of the issues on the federal government's agenda. It is to be expected that an organization as large and complex as the federal government, with annual spending of around $230 billion, does some things very well and has difficulties in other areas. Our report shows this wide range of accomplishments and challenges.
[Translation]
In 2006-2007, federal transfers to the provinces and territories amounted to about $50 billion, or just under 23 per cent of federal spending.
We undertook a study to inform parliamentarians about the main mechanisms used to transfer funds to the provinces and territories. Members of Parliament have told us it is not always clear which transfers have conditions attached, and what the nature and extent of the conditions are.
[English]
The study explains that while some transfers involve conditions on the use of the funds, others do not. Where there are no conditions, the provinces and territories have no legal obligation to spend the funds for the purposes intended by the federal government. The clean air and climate change trust fund, which Scott will elaborate on later, is one example.
This year we examined how Health Canada has responded to commitments made by first ministers in the past to report on health indicators. We found that while Health Canada has published health indicator reports, the reports do not fulfill the broader intent to report to Canadians regularly on the progress of health care renewal. The report, Healthy Canadians, has given statistics on indicators, such as wait times reported by patients for diagnostic services, but it does not give enough information to help readers understand what it means.
[Translation]
Reports on health indicators are meant to inform Canadians about progress being made on key priorities, such as quality of service. However, Health Canada's report falls short.
Other national organizations publish similar reports. Health Canada needs to review its role and its approach to health indicator reporting.
[English]
Let me now turn to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and its protection of Canada's plant resources--that is, how it deals with the risk presented by invasive alien plants, seeds, plant pests, and diseases.
The sheer volume of imports makes it impossible to inspect all shipments. Given that the volume has more than doubled in the last seven years, it is critical that the agency focus on the greatest risks. We found that management has no systematic way of knowing if its procedures are adequately designed and operating effectively to keep invasive alien species from entering and becoming established in Canada.
[Translation]
Our audit findings are serious. The Agency needs to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the way it handles imports under its plant health program.
Two chapters in this report deal with management practices at the Canada Revenue Agency. The first one looks at how CRA manages its IT investments.
The Agency invests about $175 million a year in large, complex systems that affect Canadians. We found that it has developed a sound approach for choosing and managing its investments in the future. However, we found problems in most of the projects we looked at.
[English]
The agency needs to ensure that its new approach to managing its investments is rigorously applied so that they deliver the intended benefits. In addition, the agency faces the prospect of having to replace about one-third of its national applications, and it has recognized that its current resources may not be sufficient. It needs to manage its IT investments as a portfolio in order to make the difficult choices that lie ahead.
[Translation]
Our second chapter on the Agency looks at people management.
The CRA has made major changes in people management and it expects they will lead to reduced costs and more efficiency.
However, we found that the Agency has had difficulty with its new staffing process, which employees said was frustrating and confusing, partly because it continues to change.
[English]
An efficient staffing process is critical in light of the recruiting challenges the agency expects to face in the coming years. It needs to reflect upon its approach to staffing before pushing ahead.
Turning to our chapter on the Correctional Service of Canada, we found that the agency has not been taking advantage of possible savings through more efficient deployment of its security staff. We found that overtime costs have risen, while the number of prisoners has remained relatively stable. The Correctional Service has not analyzed the impact of overtime on salary costs or the potential advantages of hiring more staff.
Similarly, we found that the agency could be missing out on savings in the way it purchases food, clothing, and cleaning supplies for its 58 institutions.
[Translation]
While we understand its focus on safety and security, Correctional Service needs to analyze what these goods and services are costing it and whether there are more economical and efficient alternatives.
We also looked at how the government oversees small government organizations.
Despite their size, small federal entities can have a significant impact on Canadians. We found that central agencies have not paid enough attention to the oversight of these organizations and the unique challenges they face, in particular their limited capacity.
[English]
Small entities do not have the systems and resources of large departments and may have only a few key people responsible for several functions. Sometimes this situation can lead to problems, as we have found in previous audits. Central agencies have been aware for several years of the problems facing small entities, yet they have done very little to address the problems. It is time for concrete action.
[Translation]
We looked at PWGSC's contracting for professional services to help it deliver its own programs. We found that the Department followed the government's rules when awarding most contracts. A fair, open and transparent award process was a significant finding in a department that spends over $1 billion a year on contracts for professional services.
However, we found problems in the management of some contracts once they had been awarded.
[English]
While the department has proper rules in place, it needs to do more to ensure that contracts are properly managed after they have been awarded. The department has agreed with our recommendations and is taking steps to correct the problems we identified.
Mr. Chair, I would now like to ask the commissioner to provide you with a brief overview of his report.
Mr. Chair, I am pleased to be here today to present my first report. Let me begin with three general observations drawn from the report.
First, the government cannot demonstrate that the money it is spending on some important environmental programs is making a difference. Second, the government is not ensuring that measures to limit harmful air emissions are working. Third, the government has not yet translated sustainable development into concrete practice.
Canadians expect the government to tackle environmental degradation. The government needs to know what works, what doesn't, and why. However, our audit work for this report found gaps in the information needed for Parliament to know how well the programs we examined are working or whether adjustments are needed.
Let me begin with the environmental programming at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. While agriculture generates billions of dollars for Canada's economy, pollution from the farm sector also represents a significant environmental burden. Public concern about its effects is growing. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has spent $370 million to encourage farm practices that protect the environment. However, after five years the department cannot show whether these environmental programs are leading to improvements in environmental quality on the farm.
[Translation]
We also looked at Environment Canada's management of severe weather warnings to Canadians. Severe weather events like tornadoes and blizzards can result in injury or loss of life and cause significant damage. Being able to issue advance warnings accurately allows Canadians to prepare.
[English]
We found that the department lacks an effective national approach to verify the timeliness and the accuracy of the more than 10,000 severe weather warnings it issues each year. We also found that the assets of its weather observation network, including radar and surface stations, are not managed adequately to ensure that the network can continue providing the data needed by the department to issue and to verify severe weather warnings.
[Translation]
Environment Canada is considered a world leader in weather services. Each day, it provides a valuable service to Canadians. However, as severe weather events are expected to become even more severe and frequent due to climate change, the weather service faces fundamental challenges and risks to the durability of its systems. We recommend that it adopt a long-term strategy to guide its decisions.
The Report also discussed examples of measures the government has used to reduce air pollution. In order to be credible to Canadians and the rest of the world, the government's programs for reducing air pollution must be able to produce measurable results. In that respect, most of what our audit found was disappointing.
[English]
For example, we looked at the regulations on gas pumps aimed at limiting the release of toxic vapours such as benzene when people refuel their cars and trucks. We found that Environment Canada has done almost no enforcement of these regulations. As a result, it does not know whether the regulations are working.
Another example is the clean air and climate change trust fund--$1.5 billion transferred to the provinces to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. Although Environment Canada claims that certain reductions will be achieved, the trust fund has no conditions requiring the provinces to report on how they use the money and what was achieved. This will make it difficult for Environment Canada to support its claims that greenhouse gases will be reduced by 16 megatonnes per year between 2008 and 2012 as a result of the fund.
[Translation]
We also looked at the Public Transit Tax Credit, a plan designed to encourage Canadians to switch to public transportation. Although this is a commendable goal, we found that actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions were disappointing relative to the $635 million cost.
Lastly, we looked at a pollution prevention plan, intended to lower the emissions of a harmful toxic substance, acrylonitrile. We found that since that substance was declared toxic almost eight years ago, total emissions have not been lowered but rather have increased three-fold.
[English]
My report also includes chapters on environmental petitions and sustainable development strategies.
Mr. Chair, we would be happy to answer any questions committee members may have.
:
Thank you, Ms. Fraser and Mr. Vaughan, for being here. I'm not a person who goes into long preambles, but as for today's questioning, I have to set the groundwork so that you understand where I'm coming from.
The overarching concerns that I see in all eight chapters of the AG's report and the five chapters of the environmental commissioner's report have been a lack of accountability, a lack of governance, and incompetency in management. But my major concern—and I'm going to deal with the environmental area—is that I feel ideology overrides evidence.
I used to sit on the environment committee, and the Conservatives at that time did not believe in climate change. Kyoto was there, but you rightly pointed out that the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has said that the environment has transformed over the past 50 years, and that there is a correlation between environmental degradation and food safety, health, and weather.
You also indicate that the National Cancer Institute of Canada states that 40% of women and 45% of Canadian men will develop cancer. So we all know that the environment is important and that we have to manage it. Whether we like it or not, we are going into global warming. You also stated that the government has an important role, and that it has tools that it should use such as regulation, economic measures, pollution prevention, and voluntary agreements.
One of the things that were very disconcerting to me was the $1.5 billion for the clean air and climate change trust fund, which is transferred to the provinces. So I shall ask you five specific questions.
One, how does this program work, if you know?
Two, who is the trustee of this fund, from a federal government perspective?
Three, are there any memorandums of understanding between the provinces and the federal government regarding the management and the use of this fund?
Four, in your audit, would you be able to trace the money? Would you know where it has gone, or how it has been used?
Five, in your opinion, what is the environmental impact of the $1.5 billion?
I'd like to start with those.
:
Just before I leave this, for the edification of colleagues on committee, the departmental performance report of 2007-08 provides a chart on page 18. It goes through all their previous performance and what they had hoped to achieve in 2007-08, and in at least half of them they did not meet their goal.
Some of them are very disconcerting: for instance, things like the extent to which the agency data indicate the entry of new regulated diseases and pests into Canada. The target was no entry of new regulated diseases and pests through regulated pathways. In 2007-08, there were three; in 2006-07, there were two entries; and in 2005-06 there were four entries. So four, two, three...at best they're holding. They don't seem to be getting far on that one.
With regard to change in the presence of plant diseases or pests beyond the regulated area, in 2005-06 there was some increase, in 2006-07 there was some increase, and in 2007-08 there was increase. Performance met? No, it hasn't been met for the last year.
Now these—and I'll just do it quickly, Chair—are a number that talk about the compliance rate they expect from industries that are regulated; for instance, “Extent to which bulk-blend fertilizers comply with efficacy standards and fertilizer-pesticide samples tested, comply with safety standards (non-biotechnology product)”. I don't pretend to understand that, but I'm assuming it's important or they wouldn't be measuring it. And it's in the category of “Industry complies with federal acts and regulations concerning Canada's crops and forests”. Again, in 2005-06, 82%, then 78%, and now 83%. Their target was 95%.
Am I done completely?
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Auditor General. I've always had great admiration and respect for your work.
I'll try to cover two chapters, because I'm not sure if you'll have a chance to get back to me or not. I'd like to start by taking another look at the CFIA, which Mr. Christopherson directed our attention to earlier--the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, chapter 4.
I must admit that I was completely dumbfounded when I read about the operations in CFIA. I thought there was a profound lack of controls, no accountability, pure incompetence, and an utter disregard for procedures. In fact, I wonder how the government could allow such egregious lack of accountability to occur.
You yourself list some of the more egregious actions: the difficulty in delivering timely assessments, the backlog for requests and of assessments, non-risk-based surveys that don't identify new threats, inspections that are inconsistent or not completed at all, programs unsupported by information management technology, no tracking systems, programs lacking management processes, lost documents, no risk-based approach, no adequate quality assurance process for shipments, no national tracking system, poor communication, no quality management, and no progress from a 1996 audit. I'm surprised the CFIA hasn't been shut down. Now we learn there are increasing volumes.
In your conclusion you state that the agency lacks an effective integrated risk management approach. You identify significant problems in risk mitigation in processes, some of which I've already listed: lack of management systems, inadequate information management technology, weak information management, and lack of appropriate coordination between branches.
Why has this agency not been shut down or mandated to operate with tighter supervision and controls?
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There seems to be profound mismanagement here.
I'll proceed with my second question while you're agreeing on the line of procedure.
In chapter 2, “Governance of Small Federal Entities”, I found that there was a real lack of governance there as well. You yourself report that governance regimes are not working well. Reporting requirements are burdening small entities. Committees have been set up to address these small entities, but they lack the capacity to build, sustain, and improve internal services such as finance, HR, and IT. Sharing can address some of these challenges.
With these smaller federal entities this governance does not involve a board of directors or another governing body. Would it not be a good idea that a board of directors assist with strategic plans, budgets, governance, and general accountability?
Second, I noted that portfolio coordination needed improvement, and I wondered why an officer of portfolio affairs wasn't standard for each of the small entities.
Third, would some of the small entities benefit from a horizontal audit?
Fourth, do you recommend that the reporting burden be reduced? What administrative services could be shared?
Finally, what best practices have you observed in other jurisdictions that would alleviate some of these issues?
Thank you.
On the question of boards, those might be appropriate, or certainly departmental audit committees might be appropriate for some of these agencies, but they vary significantly in size, and some can be as small as five or six people. To impose a board on a lot of these might actually not make their life any easier. There might be more people on the board than in the agency. So it's really a question of much better portfolio coordination and giving these smaller agencies the support that they need to be able to do their work effectively.
Regarding an officer of portfolio affairs, we note in the report that there are certain departments that have one, and doing so would appear to be a best practice.
On the question of horizontal audits, when we look at a particular issue, we will include the agencies that are within it. I know that the internal audit function of the Treasury Board Secretariat is also doing horizontal audits and has set up, actually, an internal audit function for these small agencies so that each one doesn't have to have its own internal auditors. That is moving, and they're also setting up an audit committee that will cover all those small agencies as well. I'm not exactly sure where all that is at, but those are good practices that are coming into effect.
On reporting, the issue there is that every agency and department, be it the Department of National Defence or an agency of six people, has to produce the same number of reports, which we say are 100 a year. It is very time-consuming and very burdensome, and there are questions about what that information is actually being used for.
There have been some initiatives undertaken on the human resource question and reporting and trying to streamline some of that, but there really is a need to simplify and streamline and reduce the complexity of these things and the numbers of these things, because these agencies simply don't have the capacity to deal with all of them.
Finally, the whole question of support services and shared services is critical. Many of the agencies do not have the budgets to be able to have a financial management expert, a human resource management expert. We have seen cases in which they've gotten into trouble because of that. There was an initiative in the federal government to have them share services with large departments. I question how effective that will be, because I'm not sure that the large departments will pay the attention that might be required to the smaller agencies. Some of the smaller agencies are sharing services between themselves and some are offering services to others. There's a question about the mandate and the MOUs that are put in place to make sure roles and responsibilities are clear.
We have noted a practice that has been introduced in the province of Quebec, where there is a common service for smaller agencies, a bit like a service bureau, if you will, for smaller agencies, and it will actually do the transactions for them. There are various models, and I think the Treasury Board Secretariat is certainly aware of these issues, but there hasn't been a lot of progress on it.
[English]
Thank you for coming, Ms. Fraser, Mr. Vaughan, and Mr. Maxwell.
Ms. Fraser, you've contributed significantly to Canadian governance. It's a great honour to be here. And I have to say, given the relentless way you pursue facts, I'm glad to be on this end of the questioning
I'd like to refer in my question to something the chairman just said. I'm going to get to an area Ms. Crombie was pursuing a minute ago on chapter 2.
He said that when transparency is pursued, there's a benefit for all Canadians. You reached the conclusion, for the tenth straight year that an Auditor General has reached this conclusion, that Canada's governance deserved an unqualified opinion concerning the government's consolidated financial statements. When the Comptroller General was questioned on that last Thursday concerning foreign investment, he said that's probably a good thing because it means that foreign investors and business people can depend on what they see, and he knew of no other country in the world that had ten straight unqualified opinions. This strikes me as a great thing that we as Canadians can celebrate. You have verified it, and so we thank you for your role.
Concerning chapter 2, as somebody who has set up and run non-profit enterprises and has run small businesses here and in Asia, I sympathize with those small entities that you reviewed. You concluded that they don't “have the systems and resources of large departments and may have only a few key people responsible for several functions. Sometimes this can lead to problems”. I can see that, and certainly a government that is committed to accountability, as this government is, wants to know how we can improve. The flip side of having the unqualified opinion is that we must always be accountable and must always be improving in our accountability.
So here's the first of my questions.
You identified the new policy on internal audit that came into force on April 1, 2006, as a positive development. Ms. Fraser, can you briefly explain this policy and expand on how it will increase accountability and oversight?
We are very pleased to have seen this policy introduced. I think internal audit is a really critical function in any organization. Management should do their own monitoring and assessment and assure themselves that systems are working as intended and take corrective action. It shouldn't be the external auditor who is always playing that role.
Government has, over the years, put a fair bit of money into this. It has increased the requirements around the qualifications of people who lead internal audit departments and has required internal audit to be conducted. And without having done a follow-up, we have certainly seen evidence that the internal audit function in government has become more professional and is doing good work in government and that the departments are taking corrective action.
Frankly, as departments do more internal audit and we as external auditors can rely on it, we gain assurance and can perhaps reduce our work or work in tandem with them. I think it is of benefit to all Canadians.
One of the major things, too, that this policy instituted was to have departmental audit committees, so that external people who sit on committees advisory to the deputy ministers and review internal audit and external audit plans will be and are responsible for ensuring that there is follow-up on recommendations and action plans. This has brought, I think, much better accountability and rigour to the whole process of audit as well.
Further to Mr. Weston's questions on chapter 2, I note that on page 2 it says: “Since 2001, various TBS studies have recognized the problems faced by small entities, and the government committed itself to improvement through shared services. Yet little has been done.” I'm flipping the question the other way. You acknowledge some of the things they're doing, but there's obviously a huge swath of things that need to be done that aren't being done.
This is a big issue. It affects virtually every small entity. Just because they're small doesn't mean they're not important to Canadians' safety, quality of life, and other things that I've mentioned. From my own experience in my past life as a former Ontario solicitor general, one of the problems we ran into as we were increasing the standards for individual police officers and police services was more reporting, more training, more new technologies, and the training for all of that. There was a real pressure on police services, on their budgets. Where it became a critical issue was when we got into small police services. There aren't as many now, partly because of this reason, particularly in northern Ontario. They just couldn't meet the new requirements. They could still do good street policing and community policing, but they could not meet the reporting mechanisms and the training requirements. Ultimately a lot of them ended up either merging or taking out OPP contract policing because the OPP was big enough that they could manage this.
I'm aware of how important this is, but I'm concerned that little has been done. You know what I'm like on things that have been identified before. We get the promises that they'll do it, but then they don't do it.
Colleagues, you're going to get that a lot. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out from former MPs who have been here and done this job years ago on other reports, and on every one of them we get the same thing. This looks to me to be another one.
Auditor, this is a concern and I want to hear what your thoughts are. On page 18 under recommendations 2.60, the requirement is: “The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and the Canada Public Service Agency should incorporate into their plans measures that adequately address the reporting burden in small entities, including expected outcomes, timelines, and performance indicators.” The answer worries me. Usually we get the nicest answers with, “The auditor is so right. Thank you for pointing out this one little flaw. We'll polish that and the world will be great.”
Normally I look at them, because every now and then it says something like this. Let's remember, the problem is that the reporting mechanisms are not being met, the requirements for reporting. The answer reads: “Agreed. The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat and Canada Public Service Agency are committed to reducing the reporting requirements for all departments and agencies, including small entities.” What I'm reading is that we're telling them there's a problem, they're not responding to all of the reports they need to do, but the government's answer is, “Well, rather than give them the support they need to do the job, what we're going to do is lower the number of reports they have to send in.”
This is very troubling, particularly when it's now emerging that it was the deregulation of the financial sector in the U.S. that in large part led to the mess that we're in now. This is deregulation. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, and you've heard how I feel about it, but I would like to know whether you share those concerns. Do you know something I don't?
I read something like that. When somebody is not doing something and they say, “Well, we'll just pull the requirement”, well, I think those reports are there for a reason in most cases.
What are your thoughts?
:
Thank you for coming out again, Ms. Fraser, Mr. Maxwell, and Mr. Vaughan.
Let me go to chapter 5. I'll be dealing with the environmental report. I may jump around to chapter 3, and I hope I will get the chance.
We talked about the complexities of these reports. For example, I'm going to go to the number of petitions we're dealing with. It says here that there are 56 petitions, a 24% increase, about 13 more than there had been. Ontario accounted for half of this increase. Human environmental assessments and the effects of exposure to electromagnetic radiation seem to compartmentalize the majority of these increases.
You also said that increasing transparency and accountability has been a priority of this government. I think this should be an objective for most governments. It's a great initiative, and we talked a little bit earlier about trust funds and transfers. As for the time delay, because of the increase, you have 86% on time this year, 95% last year. Exhibit 5.4 is called electromagnetic radiation exposure, and it has to do with the concerns caused by cellular towers. So I look at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Does that represent one petition, or is that five petitions regarding one cellular tower?
I'll take your points maybe in reverse order. In terms of the notion that agriculture both creates problems and has benefits, absolutely, and we talk extensively in the audit about that. For example, we use the example of carbon sequestration. If soils are well managed, they can in fact sequester carbon. So there's very much a recognition throughout the experts in this field that it's both about problems and benefits.
In terms of studies that have shown the increased impact, one of the things we also note in here is that it really is a mixed picture. I have a specific reference I can give you: paragraph 3.7. If you look over the last 20 years, some things have gotten better and some things have gotten worse. On the soil example, one of the success stories in Canada is how soil conservation has improved in the last 20 years. But equally well on the negative side, if you look at some of the nutrient-loading issues, nitrogen phosphorus runoff, there's been degradation.
The nature of the problem is really, as we say in this chapter, that the department has to be in a much better position than it has been to show how its expenditures, $370 million each year, are actually impacting both the good and the bad.
My next question would be to Mr. Vaughan. On page 24, you stated that the government said it does not intend to monitor targets on this trust fund. You also stated that the $635 million, which according to the in his ways and means debate was supposed to be 220,000 tonnes.... It turns out it is not even 35,000 tonnes.
Also, the department stated to the government that this would be totally negligible. This was the tax credit for the public transit tax credit. Is there any evidence that the ridership is up? We know, one, there's been no reduction in GHGs, but does anybody have any evidence that the ridership went up in the four metropolitan areas that use public transit?
Number two, is there any evidence--because I understand that the Canadian government had stated it would cost $800 per tonne, but the actual cost is about $2,000 to $7,000 per tonne--that there is value for money here? Are we dealing with ideology-driven initiatives versus evidence-based initiatives?
Welcome, Madam Fraser. Thank you for all the great work you do.
I'm looking at chapter 8, on page 3, at the health indicators. You say in this report, “In the late 1990s, the Canadian health care system was generally seen as being in crisis. Public opinion surveys revealed that Canadians were very concerned about the quality and sustainability of the health care system.”
Of course we know that was when the Canada health and social transfer was first created, cutting about $2 billion to the provinces for health and social welfare. Mr. Christopherson and I were both members of the Ontario Parliament at the time, and it was a very difficult.
But a lot has changed. The Healthy Canadians report is an important tool to bring accountability and ensure that we're accomplishing our goals.
You have described some of the deficiencies in the report. Can you describe some of the aspects where the report delivers?
As we mention in our report, the Healthy Canadians report was generated by a first ministers agreement in 2000. This followed up then in 2003-04. Additional funding of some $21 billion was put into health care across the country.
All of the provinces and territories and the federal government agreed to work on developing a series of indicators for the health care system and to publish these reports every two years. A set of indicators--27, I think--was developed and was agreed to by all the jurisdictions. The federal government, of course, has its own responsibilities—for example, first nations health—so they would report on that.
The provinces and territories issued the first reports and the federal government issued the first reports in 2002. The reports were subject to audit assessment by their legislative auditors. We assess the federal report. These have continued.
The federal government was the only jurisdiction to actually publish its report in 2008, so we do give them credit for actually continuing to give this kind of information on indicators. We just wish the reports had perhaps gotten a little better over time, had improved over time, had given more information to help readers actually assess what the statistics mean.