The appearance of accounting officers before the public accounts committee?/ Les temoignages des administrateurs des comptes devant le Comite des comptes publics.

• Author: Murphy, Shawn

In March 2007 the Public Accounts Committee adopted a Protocol for the Appearance of Accounting Officers as witnesses before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. This article looks at the proposed protocol and the subsequent debate about its implementation.

In a parliamentary democracy, as opposed to a presidential system, the political executive receives its power to govern from the legislature. "The government needs the approval of Parliament to legitimate its policies and activities, particularly for the expenditure of public funds. In return, the Prime Minister and Cabinet must hold themselves accountable to Parliament, and may continue to govern only as long as they retain the 'confidence' of Parliament.... Thus, while Parliament gives the executive the authority to govern, it also serves as a check on the absolute or irresponsible use of government power." (1)

In the introduction to his second, and final, report based on his review of the Sponsorship Program, Justice John Gomery wrote that he had identified a "key failure" in management of the Program: the "failure of Parliament to fulfill its traditional and historic role as watchdog of spending by the executive branch of Government." This failure had its origins in the paucity of information given to Parliament about the Program and in

"The imbalance that has developed between the power of the executive branch of the Government (in this case represented by the Prime Minister's Office) and parliamentary institutions such as the Public Accounts Committee, which should be holding the executive to account for its administration of the public purse." (2)

To remedy this imbalance, Justice Gomery, proposed several measures including two that would strengthen the capacity of committees of the House of Commons in general and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in particular. (3) Furthermore, he coupled these proposals with two others that would "explicitly acknowledge and declare that Deputy Ministers and senior public servants who have statutory authority and delegated responsibility are accountable in their own right for their statutory and delegated responsibilities before the Public Accounts Committee" (Recommendation 4) and would create a mechanism that would "resolve disputes between deputies and their ministers in areas in which deputies hold statutory authority,"--a measure having the additional benefit of confirming the ultimate responsibility of minister and preserving ministerial accountability (recommendation 5).

Measures very similar to Judge Gomery's latter two recommendations had been called for by the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in its own report on the Sponsorship Program--a report that the Committee adopted unanimously during the minority 38th Parliament and tabled in the House of Commons almost one year earlier in June 2005. (4)

In February 2006, the Government tabled bill C-2, the Federal Accountability Act which (among other things),

proposed to amend the Financial Administration Act so as to designate a senior official in each department and crown agency (most probably the deputy minister or the chief executive officer) as an accounting officer. This bill received Royal Assent in December that same year. The Financial Administration Act is thus now amended by the addition of a new section 16.4 that provides that accounting officers are accountable, within the doctrine of ministerial accountability before the appropriate

committees of the Senate and House of Commons to answer questions related to the following management responsibilities:

* the measures taken to organize the resources of the department to deliver departmental programs in compliance with government policies and procedures;

* the measures taken to maintain effective systems of internal control in the department;

* the signing of the accounts that are required for preparation of the Public Accounts (pursuant to section 64 of the FAA); and

* the performance of other specific duties assigned to him or her by the FAA or any other act in relation to the administration of the department.

Furthermore, the Financial Administration Act also now includes a conflict-resolution mechanism for addressing situations where an accounting officer and his or her minister disagree on the interpretation or application of a Treasury Board policy, directive or standard:

* the accounting officer shall seek written guidance from the Secretary of the Treasury Board;

* if, after the Secretary of the Treasury Board has provided guidance in writing, the matter remains unresolved, the Minister shall seek a decision from the Treasury Board; and

* this decision would be shared with the Auditor General as a confidence of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.

The June, 2005 report of the Public Accounts Committee report clearly demonstrated that Members of Parliament from all parties had found that the doctrine of ministerial accountability, as traditionally interpreted by the Privy Council Office, was no longer serving Parliament or Canadians well and that change was required.

The Committee was of the opinion that the roles and responsibilities of ministers and deputy ministers required clarification in a way that would ensure that both ministers and deputy ministers would know exactly where they stood--and who would be responsible, and thus accountable, for what. Seen from this perspective, the doctrine of ministerial accountability needed--not to be rejected--but to be clarified and thus strengthened. This is what the adoption of an accounting officer regime would do.

In his Report, Justice Gomery wrote of a "chain of accountability" composed of deputy ministers, the Public Accounts Committee, the Treasury Board, and the Office of the Auditor General. Together, the "links" in this chain should "provide a coherent system for the control of public expenditures," and in such a way that the "roles and actions of the participants complement and reinforce each...