Article content continued

“At the risk of putting words in Mr. Ferguson’s mouth, I can tell you that had we received the $10.8 million that he requested last summer, our office would have considered ourselves to have been properly funded. We would have been able to do the work that was expected,” said Andrew Hayes, the deputy auditor general. Planned spending for the current financial year is $93.8 million, an amount that has not risen in proportion with total government spending.

The news that the oversight body had to cancel some of its work caused some consternation on the committee. David Christopherson, a veteran NDP MP, said he had never before heard an auditor general tell a parliamentary committee that the office was unable to fulfil its mandate.

“In the past when there was reduction, the AG testified to us that they could manage it within their budget and it wouldn’t affect the work that they wanted to do and felt needed to be done. The difference now is the AG is being very clear,” said Christopherson. “They are being impeded in carrying out what they want to do and feel needs to be done because their funding requests were denied. That is new.”

An $8 million funding increase in the 2018 federal budget was not enough, Hayes said, and because of the mandatory workload — now larger because of the new entities created by the current government — their only discretion was to reduce the number of performance audits. In the past, on average, the office would have conducted 25 or 26 a year, but they would now have to go down to about 14, Hayes said.