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2004 November Report of the Auditor General of Canada
Appendix D—Report on the audit of the President of the Treasury Board's report to Parliament
Tablings in parliament for parent crown corporations: annual reports and summaries of corporate plans and budgets
The Financial Administration Act requires the President of the Treasury Board to table in each House of Parliament a report on the timing of tabling, by appropriate ministers, of annual reports and summaries of corporate plans and budgets of Crown corporations subject to the reporting provisions of Part X of the Act. The Act also requires the Auditor General to audit the accuracy of this report and to present the results in her annual report to the House of Commons.
The report on tablings is the responsibility of the President of the Treasury Board and is included in his 2004 Annual Report to Parliament–Crown Corporations and Other Corporate Interests of Canada, which must be tabled no later than 31 December. (The 2004 report had not been tabled at time that our Report was published.) The report on tablings allows Parliament to hold the appropriate ministers (and, ultimately, the Crown corporations) accountable for providing, within the relevant statutory deadlines, the information required under the Act. Accordingly, the report must indicate "the time at, before or within which" the annual reports and the summaries of corporate plans, capital budgets, and operating budgets (and amendments to them) were required to be tabled in each House and the date they were actually tabled.
Auditor's report
To the House of Commons
As required by subsection 152(2) of the Financial Administration Act, I have audited, for the year ended 31 July 2004, the information presented in the report Tabling of Crown Corporations Reports in Parliament included in the 2004 Annual Report to Parliament–Crown Corporations and Other Corporate Interests of Canada. The report is the responsibility of the President of the Treasury Board. My responsibility is to express an opinion on this information based on my audit.
I conducted my audit in accordance with the standards for assurance engagements established by the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. Those standards require that I plan and perform an audit to obtain reasonable assurance as to whether the information disclosed in the report is free of significant misstatement. My audit included examining, on a test basis, evidence supporting the dates and other disclosures provided in the report.
In my opinion, the information presented in the report Tabling of Crown Corporations Reports in Parliament is accurate in all significant respects and in accordance with the section, The Deadlines for Tabling in Parliament.
The following paragraph highlights certain information that I believe may be of interest to parliamentarians and that is not specifically highlighted or disclosed in the report Tabling of Crown Corporations Reports in Parliament in its current format. Compared with last year, the timeliness of corporate reporting has improved.
Our analysis of the information presented in this year's report identifies 55 documents that were tabled late. This is a decrease of 17 over last year. However, the report does not disclose that in 10 instances (18 last year), corporate plans were approved by the Governor in Council after the beginning of the period covered by the plans. Furthermore, in 3 of those instances (14 last year), the plans were approved more than two months after the beginning of the period covered by the plan.
Richard Flageole, FCA
Assistant Auditor General
for the Auditor General of Canada
Ottawa, Canada
18 October 2004