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House Hansard - 160

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 14, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 160 - Feb/14/23
Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC)
  • Feb/14/23 10:03:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to table two dissenting reports. The first one is on the Auditor General's report on processing disability benefits for veterans. The Auditor General's report shows that Veterans Affairs is in crisis. At the time of the audit, the median wait time for processing for veterans was 39 weeks. The standard is 16 weeks. Despite achieving just 13% of annual targets, Veterans Affairs paid out bonuses to 98% of their management executives. We table this report with two recommendations: first, that Veterans Affairs study the effects of automation to improve the service time for veterans' disability benefits; and second, that the performance, at-risk and bonus compensation for Veterans Affairs executives be withheld until such time as backlogs of disability benefit claims have been cleared and the department's service standard target for assessing future applications is consistently met. The second dissenting report is on the “Greening Government Strategy” report. The Auditor General, in her report, states the government has provided the worst GHG emissions outcomes in the entire G7. Furthermore, the report states that Treasury Board rules require that the department sign off on the integrity of its GHG emissions. Seventy-five per cent of the departments, including the Department of Environment, refused to sign off on integrity, showing that their emission results are much like their environmental plan, which is a sham. We therefore submit three recommendations: first, that the Treasury Board Secretariat ensure that all departments follow the rules and that the assistant deputy ministers sign off on the integrity of their mission data; second, that the Treasury Board provide clear, transparent projections of costs to the Canadian taxpayers to achieve net-zero by 2050; and finally, that all federal department plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 be based on existing technology and policies to accurately monitor, evaluate and communicate the performance of each department in reducing GHG emissions.
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