Highlights

Highlights from the fall 2017 report of auditor general Michael Ferguson:

Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Treasury Board failed to recognize early enough the depth and severity of the Phoenix problem, and failed to involve other departments in developing a timely plan to deal with the issue.

Agents at the Canada Revenue Agency’s call centre, meant to assist taxpayers with their tax questions, answered only 36 per cent of all incoming calls and provided incorrect answers to auditors nearly 30 per cent of the time.

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not track a number of key indicators about the integration of Syrian refugees, including whether those with chronic health problems were getting treatment and whether children were actually attending school.

The Royal Military College of Canada was not being run in a cost-effective way, lacked effective governance and often failed to provide effective instruction on military leadership for its officer cadets, contributing to a number of incidents of improper conduct.

Women offenders with significant impairment from serious mental illness are still being placed in segregation, and those same cells are often used to monitor prisoners at risk of self-harm or suicide, allowing limited oversight.

Correctional Service Canada uses a 25-year-old custody rating scale designed for male prisoners to assess female offenders for correctional programming, increasing their risk of taking programs that can’t help them.

Female prisoners are often held past their parole eligibility dates because their correctional programs are too long and not designed to meet their needs.

Indigenous female offenders don’t always get appropriate access to programming designed specifically to meet the unique needs of Aboriginal Peoples.

Health Canada cannot adequately assess the effectiveness of its oral health services programs for Indigenous Peoples.