Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna has promised to do better after an auditor’s report said they were only able to paint a “partial picture” of spending under a multi-billion dollar infrastructure program..“We needed to do a better job of showing our work,” said Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna..Blacklock’s Reporter said Auditor General Karen Hogan, in a report, said her office found incomplete records..Cabinet launched the program in 2016 with a twelve-year budget of $187.8 billion..“We found that Infrastructure Canada could publish only a partial list of projects funded by programs included in the Plan,” wrote Hogan..“The project list published online by Infrastructure Canada in June 2020 had approximately 33,000 entries and had not been updated.”.Other departmental summaries “reported about 65,000 projects,” wrote Hogan..“We found there was a difference between the project list and the summary of spending.”.“Infrastructure Canada’s reporting captured only some programs each year making it impossible to compare results year over year,” Hogan told reporters on Thursday..“The absence of clear and complete reporting on the Investing In Canada Plan makes it difficult for Parliamentarians and Canadians to know whether progress is being made against the intended objectives.”.The Commons ordered the audit January 29, 2020 amid complaints of sloppy recordkeeping and inadequate disclosure by the department..“We asked that question many, many times,” Yves Giroux, parliamentary budget officer, testified at a March 11, 2020 hearing of the Commons finance committee..“You’re telling me the Government of Canada spends tens of billions of dollars on infrastructure but can’t give us an item by item list?” asked Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.)..“True statement,” replied Giroux. “No complete list has been forthcoming. We’ve got only a partial list.”.“How many billions are missing from the list?” asked MP Poilievre..“It’s about half of the program,” replied Jason Jacques, director general of costing at the PBO..An internal audit released last October 20 found Minister McKenna’s department lacked mandatory checklists for “due diligence” and had serious “control failures.”.Auditors found of thirty-two projects selected at random, twenty-two had incomplete checklists, a failure rate of 69 per cent..“More concerning, there were two instances where approved checklists indicated the finance unit had verified the cash flow when in fact that step had not occurred before the checklist was approved,” wrote auditors..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.,dnaylor@westernstandardonline.com,.Twitter.com/nobby7694
