Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to, again, just add a little bit more context to what we heard from Ms. Bisaro and talk about, with respect to this public accounts review, that there was a number of public agencies that did not meet reporting deadlines and, according to the Auditor General, they were the South Slave Divisional Education Council, the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Aurora College and the NWT Business Development and Investment Corporation, otherwise known as BDIC.
Now, we went through the review of each one of them as to why and the Auditor General was indicating to us that the NWT Housing Corporation and Aurora College were working towards improvement, but the Auditor General did note that the Aurora College was a bit of an anomaly this year and they have to apply what he referred to as more of a big picture approach. So what they call a “no qualification” was warranted. That’s a terminology used in accounting. However, I should note that the Auditor General made very specific claim that if the Aurora College was to find themselves in this anomaly again, that a qualification would be warranted as they moved forward.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.
Question.
Question is being called.
---Carried
Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a committee motion. I move that this committee again recommend that as part of the standard reporting process, the comptroller general include a list of agencies in the consolidated public accounts that did not meet the deadline for completion of their audits. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Moses.
Thank you. I just want to make some comments in terms of the audits that weren’t meeting the deadlines. Before we began this process, a lot of agencies and government departments weren’t. This was almost a common practice. I just wanted to make the comment that since then, and since the practice of public accounts that Government Operations has been doing, there have been some huge improvements. But still, again, we want to ensure that agencies do meet their legislative requirements moving forward and we also do understand that there are challenges throughout the Northwest Territories in terms of chartered accountants and the services that they provide. Even though there are challenges, you want to really make sure that we get those audits, because they do help moving forward in terms of our business plans and the way we run business as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories continue to provide updated timetables for schedules for the environmental assessment of potentially contaminated sites for which the GNWT is responsible to be included annually in the public accounts. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. To put this motion into context, environmental liabilities have a new accounting standard referred to as PS 3260 and that is referred to as liability for contaminated sites. Committee reviewed things like the Giant Mine environmental liability and another 129 potentially contaminated sites. Dialogue between the government and the OAG staff did put some degree of uncertainty about how the GNWT was calculating its cost to remediate and record them in the public accounts. In theory, the process and the practice should be doing so at the beginning of the year. We are led to believe that this practice is being done near the end of the calendar year. This is something that would have to change. We did ask the Auditor General his thoughts on that. Some of the feedback we were getting back from the government was they did not have the time to get out to some of the sites. The Auditor General was quite clear that there cannot be any excuse. It is the role of the GNWT to get out there on time, and it is recording and it’s our legal responsibility and obligation to do so.
Since then, Mr. Chair, we’ve been given some degree of certainty that the GNWT will comply with these new provisions, new accounting standards, but it will be up to the future Assemblies and standing committees to definitely modernize, not to modernize but to monitor this performance moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that to enhance transparency, the Government of the Northwest Territories improve the quality of reporting in the public accounts, including providing a detailed explanation of how the government met the requirement of its Fiscal Responsibility Policy for the year in question. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that in the interest of transparency and accountability, the Department of Finance share the findings and recommendations of the Internal Audit Bureau with the committee in confidence, particularly where the Government of the Northwest Territories relies on those findings and recommendations as substantiation for its action taken. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just let me confirm my notes here. We know that at a very high level, programs and services are reviewed and evaluated and audited. We know that the comptroller general sits on what we call the Audit Committee and reviews a number of these programs and services for the improved corporate risk management. So, in essence, this is some very high-level internal audit work that has been done for the department so it can run smoother and be more efficient for public accounting.
We all know through questions in the House earlier this year that for the year 2013-2014, this committee approved 12 such projects. The committee, as being the Audit Committee, approved 12 such projects and addressed roughly two-thirds of them. Of those two-thirds of the projects that were evaluated, there were 47 recommendations to which the Department of Finance, according to information received by committee, only implemented about 67 percent of them. So, the bottom line is that there was some degree of reluctance from Cabinet to share the findings of the Audit Committee information, basically its findings and recommendations and implementation.
So, again, what this motion does is we stress that the standing committee in the 18th Assembly needs to hopefully work with the Cabinet to unveil, if I can use this term loosely, to unveil a bit of this degree of secrecy on corporate risk management and make this information available to standing committee, as it does have a bearing on audit opinions and the overall fiscal health of the GNWT. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. Motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Finance require all public agencies to include a management discussion analysis in their year-end report. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. Motion is carried.
---Carried
Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, I move that this committee recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories provides a comprehensive response to this report within 120 days.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, if they could do it sooner, we’d appreciate it.
---Laughter
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Does committee agree we’ve concluded Committee Report 16-17(5)?
Agreed.
We’ll move on to Committee Report 19-17(5), Report on the Review of the Auditor General’s Report on Corrections in the Northwest Territories. I will go to the chair of Government Operations, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Earlier today the Standing Committee on Government Operations read into the record its report on its review of the 2015 Report of the Auditor General of Canada on Corrections in the Northwest Territories.
The Auditor General’s report, which was tabled in this Assembly on March 3, 2015, concluded that the Department of Justice has not met its key responsibilities for inmates within the corrections system. The audit found that while the department had adequately planned for its facilities, it did not adequately operate facilities to house inmates in compliance with key rehabilitation and reintegration requirements. The committee would like to thank the Auditor General, Mr. Michael Ferguson, and his staff, as well as deputy minister of Justice, Ms. Sylvia Haener, and her staff for their appearance before the committee.
The standing committee is very concerned with the Auditor General’s findings. The report makes nine recommendations to government designed to complement the 14 recommendations contained in the Auditor General’s report and to help improve the deficiencies identified in the GNWT’s corrections system. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, I move that this committee endorse the 14 recommendations made by the Office of the Auditor General in its report and recommends that the Department of Justice takes the steps necessary to ensure all recommendations are implemented in a timely manner. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
