Minister Brison Statement on the 2016 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada

OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Nov. 29, 2016) - The Honourable Scott Brison, President of the Treasury Board, today made the following statement:

"We welcome the Auditor General's reports and agree with all of the recommendations. These reports, which cover various periods between January 2006 and September 2016, highlight key areas for improvement, a number of which we had identified and are already being addressed.

In particular, our Government is already working to:

• improve client services at the Canada Revenue Agency;
• renew a nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous peoples;
• close the gaps in service to Indigenous peoples throughout the criminal justice system;
• ensure the safety of our common border and the protection of our citizens, while facilitating trade and travel;
• strengthen our safety requirements for vehicles; and
• ensure that the Canadian Armed Forces have all the equipment and members they need to defend Canada's security and interests at home and abroad.

Our government's emphasis on evidence-based policy, results and delivery is directly in line with the Auditor General's recommendations to improve program tracking and reporting.

In my mandate letter, the Prime Minister asked me to:

• "Instill a strengthened culture of measurement, evaluation, and innovation in program and policy design and delivery."
• "Take a leadership role to review policies to improve the use of evidence and data in program innovation and evaluation, more open data, and a more modern approach to comptrollership."

Already, our new Policy on Results, which came into effect in July 2016, strengthens the Government's guidance on the measurement and evaluation of government programs. We have put a new focus on the importance of good data that directly measures the results we deliver to Canadians.

Government departments will tell Canadians clearly how they spend their tax dollars, what results are expected from their programs, and how they are being measured and achieved.

We are modernizing how the government operates, in order to reflect the values and expectations of Canadians and deliver on the service they deserve."

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