Auditor general ups funding request

COVID aid, infrastructure plan costs

OTTAWA • Canada’s new auditor general says many audits have been cancelled or delayed “indefinitely” as her office faces budgetary constraints, as well as an increased workload due to COVID-19 and infrastructure spending.

“We have some audits that are ongoing that were expected to be tabled in the House in the fall of 2020. We have delayed those into 2021,” Auditor General Karen Hogan told members of the federal finance committee on Monday. “All other audits unfortunately at this time other than one audit, under the commissioner of the environment, have been put on hold, cancelled or delayed indefinitely so that we can focus on Investing in Canada and COVID-19.”

The reasons for the setbacks are essentially twofold.

Firstly, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) needs more money in order to fulfil its consistently growing mandate, said Hogan, who was appointed June 8, to replace her predecessor Michael Ferguson, who died in February 2019.

Last year, Ferguson told MPS that the office needed an extra $10.8 million in order to both hire new auditors and update the OAG’S obsolete IT infrastructure.

Now that the OAG has to audit Crown corporations as well as the federal government’s $187-billion Investing in Canada infrastructure plan and COVID-19 aid measures, Hogan says she’s going to need much more than that.

“The $10.8 million is an outdated request ... I think it’s fair to even say it’s a significantly outdated request,” she explained, adding that her office is still calculating the new budget request and would submit it to parliamentarians soon.

Secondly, the aforementioned Investing in Canada and COVID-19 audits are so large in scope, they will likely take years to complete fully and will consume much of the OAG’S resources, Hogan warned.

A unanimous motion adopted by members of the finance committee earlier this month asked the OAG to audit all federal programs association to the pandemic.

“Auditing all of the COVID programs would be astronomical," Hogan said, adding it would take many years and wouldn’t be in the best interests of Parliament or Canadians.

Instead, Hogan said her office is going to prioritize programs according to “risk” and where audits will have “the best impact and value.”

The first parts of the government’s pandemic response plan being audited are the availability of personal protective equipment, Canada’s food supply, and the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said Parliament is eager for answers, but MPS also want the auditor general to do a thorough job.