CONTENTS
Standing Committee on Public Accounts
Saskatchewan
Legal Aid Commission
Prairie
Agricultural Machinery Institute
Saskatchewan
Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
Summary
of Implemented Recommendations
Standing
Committee on Public Accounts
THIRTIETH
LEGISLATURE
of
the
Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan
STANDING
COMMITTEE ON
Hansard Verbatim Report
No.
13 — Tuesday, January 20, 2026
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, we’ll convene the Standing
Committee on Public Accounts. My name is Trent Wotherspoon. I’m the Chair of
the Public Accounts. Welcome to all the committee members. I’ll introduce
members now: MLA [Member of the Legislative Assembly] Thorsteinson, MLA Chan,
MLA Harrison, MLA Patterson, MLA Pratchler, and MLA
Gordon.
Our first item of business here today
will be the election of a Deputy Chair. I’d like to remind members of the
process. I’ll first ask for nominations. Once there are no further nominations,
I’ll then ask for a member to move a motion to have a committee member preside
as Deputy Chair.
At this time I’ll call for nominations
for that position. And I recognize MLA Chan.
David Chan: — I would like to
nominate James Thorsteinson to the position of Deputy Chair.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Chan has nominated MLA
Thorsteinson to the position of Deputy Chair. Are there further nominations?
Seeing none, I would now invite one of the members to move a motion.
[10:00]
David Chan: — I move:
That James
Thorsteinson be elected to preside as Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on
Public Accounts.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. It’s been moved by MLA Chan:
That James
Thorsteinson will be elected to preside as Deputy Chair of the Standing
Committee on Public Accounts.
All in favour of the motion? All
opposed? I declare the motion carried.
Thanks for your service. Looking forward
to working with you.
We have the following document to table:
PAC 68‑30, Ministry of Social Services: Responses to questions raised at
the October 15th, 2025 meeting.
I’d like to introduce the officials from
our Provincial Comptroller’s office: Brent Hebert, Provincial Comptroller; and
Jane Borland, assistant provincial comptroller. Thanks for your service. Thanks
for being here.
And I’d like to welcome and introduce
our Provincial Auditor Tara Clemett and her team and officials that are in attendance
here today with the Provincial Auditor’s office, and those that will be joining
us here today.
Executive Council
Chair Wotherspoon: — All right. We’ll move right along. Our first
item of business here today are the chapters pertaining to Executive Council
and focus on Executive Council. I’d like to welcome Deputy Minister Wilson to
this committee. Thank you for being here. Thank you for your service. I’d ask
you to introduce briefly your official that’s with you here today, and then
I’ll take it over to the auditor to make comment on the chapters. And then
we’ll come back your way for comment.
Raynelle
Wilson: — Good.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Today with me I have Myron Soloduk
who is the executive director of corporate services.
Chair Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you very much for being here. I will
turn it over now to Tara Clemett, our Provincial Auditor, and her team.
Tara Clemett: — Thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair, committee
members, and officials. With me today is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach. She is a
principal in our office, and she was the engagement lead on this year’s annual
integrated audit at Executive Council.
Today we’re
going to do one presentation summarizing the two chapters noted on the agenda
in one overall presentation. We are pleased to report that Executive Council
has addressed the one outstanding recommendation that we’ve been reporting in
these chapters for some time by March 31st, 2025. So while the review of these
chapters won’t necessarily convey that implementation, we do plan to examine
the summary of implemented recommendations on the agenda today at 3 p.m. And
the review of that chapter will confirm that the recommendation has been fully
addressed.
I do want to
thank the deputy minister and her staff for the co-operation that was extended
to us during the course of our work.
With that,
I’ll turn it over to Michelle.
Michelle
Lindenbach: — Thanks,
Tara. The Office of Executive Council provides support to the Premier, cabinet
secretaries, and cabinet committees. Our annual integrated audit of Executive
Council looks at whether it had effective rules and procedures — that is,
internal controls — to safeguard public resources, and whether it complied with
authorities governing its activities.
The two
chapters we are covering today report the results of Executive Council’s annual
audits for the years ended March 31st, 2023 and 2024, and conclude that
Executive Council had effective internal controls and complied with
authorities, other than having the proper authority to pay legislative
secretaries at different rates.
During 2023
and 2024 Executive Council continued to set remuneration of legislative
secretaries inconsistent with the Board of Internal Economy directives. The
Executive Government Administration Act gives the Lieutenant Governor
in Council or cabinet authority to appoint MLAs as legislative secretaries with
or without remuneration. However it does not give cabinet authority to set
remuneration rates for the legislative secretaries. Setting remuneration is the
responsibility of the Board of Internal Economy under The Legislative
Assembly Act. During 2023 and 2024 we continued to not see evidence
of Executive Council working with the board to align remuneration of
legislative secretaries with board directives.
During our 2025 audit, the Board of
Internal Economy amended Legislative Secretary remuneration rates. At its
December 10th, 2024 meeting the board amended directive 21, Annual Indemnity
and Allowances, to change the annual allowance for legislative secretaries to
be up to $16,303, which allows for varied remuneration rates up to the maximum
approved amount. Therefore we reported this recommendation as implemented in
chapter 8, “Summary of Implemented Recommendations,” in our 2025 report volume
2. And this concludes my presentation. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks so much. Thank you for
the work and the course we’ve considered these recommendations in the past —
for a brief remark. Then we’ll open it up for questions.
Raynelle Wilson:
— Very good. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is a pleasure to be here this morning.
And we are here today to discuss those two chapters from the two different
Provincial Auditor reports. And I appreciate that this recommendation on the
remuneration rates had been outstanding since the 2018 report; so similarly I
was pleased to provide an update on this issue today.
A similar report, with respect to the
Board of Internal Economy amendment, at its December 10th, 2024 meeting
providing that the annual allowance for legislative secretaries be up to
16,303, which allows for that varied remuneration rate up to the maximum
approved limits. And so as a result, pleased that this recommendation is now
implemented.
We look forward to answering any other
questions from the committee.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much. And at this
time I’d like to table PAC 69‑30, Executive Council: Status update, dated
January 20th, 2026. I’ll open it up to the committee for questions. MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Good morning; how
are you? With respect to the recommendation, you know, it appears according to
the auditor general that this recommendation spans over several years. It’s
been quite some time. I just was curious if you could tell the committee today
why it took so long for Executive Council to finally get around to implementing
this recommendation?
Raynelle Wilson:
— Wonderful. Thank you for the question. I would say that, you know, the
Ministry of Justice provided some guidance to Executive Council on this issue
in 2016 and again in the fall of 2019, and advised that the Lieutenant Governor
in Council could appoint legislative secretaries with remuneration on the
condition that they agree to forgo the amount set by the Board of Internal
Economy and accept a lesser amount. And so the appointment of legislative
secretaries and that remuneration was based on that advice.
And however, I think it had been
certainly an ongoing discussion with the Provincial Auditor. And just pleased
that we were able to do and undertake that work with the Board of Internal
Economy to amend the wording with respect to, you know, obviously where that
authority in fact lies for that remuneration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you. So what
you’re saying then is that Executive Council got some legal advice from
Ministry of Justice as to the parameters of what remuneration for Legislative
Secretary should be, in spite of the Board of Internal Economy’s policies and
guidelines with respect to remuneration. There was a difference of opinion; is
that what you’re saying?
Raynelle Wilson:
— Correct. We felt that we had the advice from the Ministry of Justice on this
issue and that we were appointing those legislative secretaries based on that
advice.
Hugh Gordon: — Did that advice
include like what your legislative authority was to actually do that? Are you
able to share that?
Raynelle Wilson:
— You know what, I don’t think I’m able to share that at this time. I would
just say that with respect to what they were looking at and the fact that, I
think, overall the remuneration was less than the amount that would have
necessarily been prescribed there. Again it was really based on that advice
that that Legislative Secretary forgo the amount set by the Board of Internal
Economy. And then that was the understanding of the advice that we were working
under at that time, yes.
Hugh Gordon: — Okay. And so,
sorry, just to be clear, the decision to implement the recommendation then was
a reconciliation of advice from the Ministry of Justice with the Board of
Internal Economy’s authority?
Raynelle Wilson:
— I think it’s fair to say there was good discussion with respect to amending
that wording. And then, you know, allowing that “up to” as opposed to that
prescribed amount. So, as opposed to the prescribed amount, really allowing “up
to” which then gives that, allows that variation in the remuneration.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough. If I
may continue, sorry. If anyone else has questions, feel free to interject.
So I just was curious about some of the
rationale behind it. Other than advice from the Ministry of Justice, was this
intended initially as a cost-saving measure?
Raynelle Wilson:
— I think that the decision with respect to the remuneration of the legislative
secretaries had been sort of historically around that $3,000 amount, and that
obviously decisions undertaken upon reappointment of legislative secretaries or
new appointments of legislative secretaries was simply the interest in
retaining that remuneration at that point, which I think reflected an
acceptable level of remuneration for those legislative secretaries.
Hugh Gordon: — And on that point,
we see that there is obviously an “up to” policy to reflect the recommendation.
So I’m just curious here, like is that variation in remuneration, is it based
on some particular metric as to . . . So I guess in the past it was
$3,000 and not the 16,000 and change, as per Board of Internal Economy policy.
So is that variation now or “up to,” is that going to be based on some metric?
Is it based on some metric?
Raynelle Wilson:
— I think it simply continues to be based on that historical metric of that
3,000 being that historical amount that has been paid, and at this point
continues to reflect the remuneration for those legislative secretaries.
Hugh Gordon: — Is it foreseeable
that that amount may be exceeded for some rationale?
Raynelle Wilson:
— I probably won’t . . . I can’t surmise sort of hypothetically what
may or may not happen in the future.
Hugh Gordon: — But what I
understand you to be saying though is, based on tradition, 3,000 is what a
Legislative Secretary could expect to be remunerated now and into the
foreseeable future, even though you’ve changed the language in your
remuneration policy to reflect the recommendation.
Raynelle Wilson:
— I think it’s fair to say that, you know, pleased that the recommendation has
been implemented, and the work done with the Board of Internal Economy — so not
offside then — allowing that variation with respect to the amount of the
remuneration. And then that’s always, I guess, an ongoing decision at the time
of the appointment of a Legislative Secretary with respect to the amount of
that remuneration.
Hugh Gordon: — Okay. If I could
just continue. So there were some secretaries that were remunerated at $3,000
and some that didn’t receive any at all.
What was the rationale for those
instances where a Legislative Secretary received no remuneration?
Raynelle Wilson:
— And Myron will correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I think in some instances
some legislative secretaries had functions under multiple portfolios. And so
the decision was to remunerate them only once, notwithstanding the fact that
they may have been appointed under multiple portfolios.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough.
Perhaps my last question. Legislative secretaries are expected to do a certain
amount of work as per the auditor’s report. They’re there to assist in a
variety of ways alongside, you know, supporting the Premier, the cabinet,
committees, coordinating government business, maintaining cabinet documents,
orders in council, etc., etc.
Sounds like a lot of responsibilities.
And I’m just curious, does Executive Council provide or publish a report on the
activities of what legislative secretaries do throughout the year?
Raynelle
Wilson: — Executive Council does not publish
any sort of report of that nature.
Hugh Gordon: — Is there some
methodology or system that Executive Council relies on in order to keep track
of those legislative responsibilities of legislative secretaries, like what
work they actually do?
Raynelle
Wilson: — I think it’s fair to say that the
work that legislative secretaries undertake is a discussion that they have with
that particular minister in the portfolio that they are appointed under. And so
that would be a discussion that they have in that respect, not through
Executive Council.
[10:15]
Hugh Gordon: — So it’s possible
that some folks who get $3,000 a year don’t do, let’s say, the kind of work
another Legislative Secretary would do that’s also getting remunerated $3,000 a
year. There would be variations in responsibility and workload.
Raynelle
Wilson: — I can’t speak to that. That would be
really a question in any of those individual portfolios where those legislative
secretaries are appointed.
Hugh Gordon: — So sorry, do I
understand correctly that Executive Council oversees the work the legislative
secretaries do? Or they do not?
Raynelle Wilson:
— We simply oversee some of that remuneration piece through the order in
council. The work that the Legislative Secretary does is with that particular
minister to which they are appointed, sort of with that portfolio.
Hugh Gordon: — And then one last . . .
So then presumably then the workload remuneration, that’s a decision that’s
made by the minister?
Raynelle Wilson:
— The remuneration is stated in their order in council. And so that is a
decision that comes through and is made through that appointment through that
order in council. And so the work itself, whatever work that any particular
Legislative Secretary undertakes, is a discussion with that particular
minister.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough, but
then what process would it entail for a Legislative Secretary — let’s say they
work for a minister that has a very demanding portfolio and they have a lot of
support to provide that minister as the secretary — what would it take then for
them to get the “up to” part of the 16,800 and change, I believe it is, in
remuneration? What process would have to be engaged for that to happen?
Raynelle Wilson:
— So I think what I would say is that again legislative secretaries have
historically been appointed with remuneration of $3,000. The discussion that
has been ongoing with respect to the recommendations coming out of the report
is that $3,000 amount was offside with that Board of Internal Economy
directive. So that Board of Internal Economy directive being now sort of
tweaked to allow that “up to” puts us, you know, in alignment then with that
directive. And so as was recently seen, decision with any recent appointments
of legislative secretaries was done with the remuneration of $3,000.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough. But
just so that I understand correctly, that’s still discretionary.
Raynelle Wilson:
— So it was discretionary in that the amount is set through and decided, set
out in the order in council. And I guess, in terms of the discretionary piece,
again back to that original advice that we received from the Ministry of
Justice, that it was really about that Legislative Secretary agreeing to forgo
the amount set by the Board of Internal Economy.
And now that the Board of Internal
Economy has amended its wording to allow the “up to” that we’re now in
compliance, sort of, and in alignment with that. And so the decision . . .
And that remuneration is always set out through that order in council then.
Hugh Gordon: — That’s all my
questions. Thanks.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions from committee
members? Not seeing any, I’d welcome a motion to conclude consideration. We’ve
already dealt with these in the past. Thanks for the work on it. I’d welcome a
motion to conclude consideration of ’23 and ’24 as they pertain to the
Executive Council in the volume 2, chapter 2 reports. Moved by MLA Harrison.
All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. That’s carried. I want to
thank Deputy Minister Wilson and officials for joining us here today. Any final
words for us, Deputy Minister, before we turn our attention?
Raynelle Wilson:
— Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you. All right. We’ll
have a very brief recess as we reset the table here and the Ministry of Justice
and Attorney General come before us.
[The committee recessed for a period of
time.]
Justice and Attorney General
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks. We’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts, and we’ll turn our attention to the
Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. I want to welcome the officials that
have joined us here this morning, the leadership. I want to welcome Deputy
Minister Kratzig, and she can provide a brief
introduction of all the officials that have joined us here today. Refrain from
getting into the focus of the considerations at this time because we’ll go to
the auditor and then come back your way for that.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Good morning. Thank you for the introduction. And I’d like to introduce Brad
Gurash who is our assistant deputy minister of corporate services with the
ministry; and Gina Alexander who is the executive director of community safety
and well-being. We will be changing out officials as we move from chapter to
chapter, so I’ll introduce the new officials when they arrive.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s great. Welcome to all.
Thanks for being here. Thanks for your work.
I’ll table at this point PAC 70‑30,
Ministry of Justice and Attorney General: Status update, dated January 20th,
2026.
And I’ll kick it over to the Provincial
Auditor. I know she’s going to focus on the first chapter before us there of
the 2025 report volume 1, chapter 5.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
committee members and officials. With me today is Mr. Victor Schwab, and he’s
the deputy provincial auditor that is responsible for the portfolio of work
that includes the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General. And then behind me
is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach, and she’s our liaison with this committee.
The first chapter we are going to
discuss includes six new recommendations for this committee’s consideration
related to the provision of transition spaces. The second chapter is a
follow-up chapter related to coroner investigations, with all the recommendations
now being fully implemented. We will pause after each of the chapters for the
committee’s discussion and consideration.
Before we do begin our presentations, I
do want to thank the deputy minister and all of her staff for the co-operation
that was extended to us during the course of our work.
Interpersonal violence is the
intentional and unlawful use of physical force or power, threatened or actual,
that results in or has a high likelihood of injury, death, or psychological
harm. It relates to family, partner, and community violence.
The Ministry of Justice and Attorney
General helps fund transition spaces for individuals leaving interpersonal
violence through transition houses and second-stage housing. The ministry
provided 12 transition houses $7.4 million, and seven second-stage houses
$328,000 in 2023‑24. Transition houses can help individuals navigate
various social services and administrative processes, such as securing
financial support and more permanent housing, navigating child custody and
child care, and accessing legal services and counselling.
In our first recommendation, on page 59,
we recommend the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General make information on
how to apply for funding and licensing more accessible to potential transition
house operators. The ministry last approved and licensed a new transition house
in 2018. Since that time the ministry funded 12 transition houses and annually
licensed 11 transition houses. The one house is licensed by the Alberta
government.
The ministry does not have an easy,
accessible way for new transition houses to apply for licensing and funding. It
currently relies on potential applicants contacting either the ministry
directly or being referred to the ministry based on inquiries made to other
government agencies such as the Saskatchewan Housing Corporation.
Between April 2023 and July 2024, one
potential transition house applicant emailed the ministry to make initial
inquiries about licensing in October 2023. As of July ’24, the ministry had not
heard back from this applicant. Having a clear and accessible way for potential
applicants to apply for funding and licensing can assist in providing the
necessary information to potential applicants. It also removes barriers for
organizations attempting to find operating funding for transition houses and
can help save time in the application process.
In our second recommendation, on page
61, we recommend the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General determine key
performance information required from transition houses. The Ministry of
Justice and Attorney General uses agreements to adequately outline service
expectations, reporting requirements, and funding levels with transition and
second-stage housing. Every three years, the ministry updates its agreement
with transition houses. We assessed the adequacy of the agreements and found
them consistent with good practice.
However each transition house set its
own performance outputs and outcomes in the agreement. There was no consistency
in performance outputs and outcomes between transition house agreements. This
can make it more difficult for the ministry to consistently compare transition
house performance. Having excessive or inconsistent performance information
increases the risk the transition houses use resources to track and report on
information that is not providing value to the ministry.
In
our third recommendation, on page 63, we recommend the Ministry of Justice and
Attorney General rationalize the funding provided to the community-based
organizations operating transition and second-stage housing. During transfer
agreement negotiations, which happens — again — every three years, the ministry
and transition houses agree on funding levels for the next three years.
Typically this funding is similar to the prior agreement, with economic factors
considered such as inflation.
We found the ministry’s funding to the
transition houses increased by 12 per cent in the past six years, from $6.8 million
in 2018‑19 to $7.7 million in 2024‑25. Ministry management
indicated these funding levels increased were due to increased economic
factors. Funding levels were not based on the extent of survivors served. For
example, two ministry-funded transition houses in different areas of
Saskatchewan with equal bed numbers had funding differ by over $200,000 in 2024‑25.
[10:30]
Second-stage houses received less
funding than the transition houses, and as with the transition houses, the
ministry did not have documented rationale for the funding levels provided to
the second-stage houses. Without detailed funding analysis, the ministry is
unable to rationalize why a transition house with less spaces or fewer
individuals served may receive more funding than a transition house with more
spaces and more individuals served. This lack of analysis may lead to
over-funded transition spaces while others struggle to meet survivor needs.
In our fourth recommendation, on page
64, we recommend the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General periodically
inspect transition houses to verify compliance with established requirements.
The ministry told us it requires staff to visit each transition house twice
annually; however these visits do not cover what would be expected in an
inspection, such as requiring a completed checklist to confirm whether
legislative requirements are being met.
We verified that at least one visit to
each transition house did occur in 2023‑24. Ministry staff confirmed
these visits used to be more regulatory in nature but have since changed to be
more focused on relationship management, for example having meetings off-site
with the executive director of the transition house to discuss programming and
areas of concern. Ministry staff should perform periodic inspections, at least
annual, to verify the accuracy of information reported by the transition
houses. For example, confirm security measures are in place and working and
appropriate sleeping accommodations are provided.
Not having ministry staff physically
observe whether the transition houses meet established requirements and whether
they deliver proper services increases the risk that the transition houses are
not providing survivors with safe, supportive housing options when leaving
interpersonal violence.
In our fifth recommendation, on page 66,
we recommend the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General verify the completion
of periodic criminal record checks for people working with survivors of
interpersonal violence living in transition and second-stage houses.
The ministry agreements with the
transition and second-stage houses state that board members, staff, and
volunteers must submit a criminal record check. The ministry requires
transition and second-stage houses to establish a policy for the frequency of criminal
record checks. For the three transition houses that we tested, each had
different requirements for criminal record checks, and we found an employee at
a transition house that did not have a criminal record check on file.
The ministry neither verifies criminal
record checks for staff working at the houses upon initial licensing nor does
it require proof of periodic ongoing criminal record checks. The ministry could
review that required criminal record checks exist during periodic inspections.
The ministry regularly confirming that staff at transition and second-stage
houses have criminal record checks supports a safe space for survivors.
In our sixth recommendation, on page 69,
we recommend the Ministry of Justice and Attorney General analyze
and report key performance information, including turn-away statistics for
transition and second-stage houses, to determine strategies to address
shortfalls.
The ministry told us it does not
formally document its analysis of key performance outcomes because ministry
staff continually communicate with transition and second-stage houses.
Additionally the ministry acknowledged that transition houses were still working
on creating accurate, improved reporting due to the new requirements in the
2024‑27 agreements. The ministry expected transition houses to have
meaningful reporting available to the ministry by 2027.
Our analysis of turn-away rates at the
ministry-funded transition houses found that 18 per cent of turn-aways that
occurred between April 2023 and March 2024 resulted from capacity issues. This
highlights the need for the ministry to conduct its own analysis to identify
trends such as the areas of the province experiencing high capacity pressures
and discussing the results with interested parties to develop solutions.
Periodic analysis of turn-away rates and
other key performance information and reporting those results to ministry
senior management can help the ministry to identify trends or specific needs in
the community and support proactive responses to changing circumstances.
I will now pause for the committee’s
consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. I want to thank the auditor
for the very important focus before us here today and the focus of her report.
This is a new chapter before us, so these are new recommendations. So I’ll turn
it over to the deputy minister to provide some remarks around those. Thanks as
well for the status update that’s been provided. And then we’ll open it up for
questions.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you very much, and thank you to the auditor and her team on this
chapter. We really appreciate the very thoughtful work that was done and
approach. The ministry is committed to implementing all of the recommendations.
I’ll go over each recommendation and provide a status update on our progress to
date.
The ministry has partially implemented
the first recommendation from the auditor’s 2025 report volume 1, chapter 5, on
page 59. This recommendation asks the ministry to make information on how to
apply for funding and licensing more accessible to potential transition house
operators. The ministry has drafted the information that will be published on
the Government of Saskatchewan website in the near future.
In recommendation 2, on page 61, the
auditor has recommended that we determine key performance information required
from transition houses. The ministry is continuing to monitor and assess the
information the transition houses submit to us as part of our agreements. We’ll
be using this information to help us determine key performance indicators.
As mentioned by the auditor, our
provincial contracts, which set out information that agencies must submit,
expires on March 31st, 2027. We plan to work with the agencies on final
determination of key performance information as part of that contract renewal
and negotiations, which will take place beginning early winter of 2026.
For recommendation 3, on page 63, the
auditor recommends that we rationalize funding provided to agencies that
operate transition and second-stage houses. We are assessing the historic
funding model and gathering information to support this analysis. Once this is
complete, we will develop an implementation plan to address the auditor’s
recommendation.
To address the auditor’s fourth
recommendation, on page 64, that we periodically inspect transition houses to
verify compliance with established requirements, the ministry is in the process
of developing a policy that aligns with the recommendations and will include
inspecting each transition home on a regular cycle.
The fifth recommendation, on page 66, is
about completion of periodic criminal record checks for people working with
survivors of interpersonal violence living in transition and second-stage
housing. To address the recommendation we have requested that all transition
houses provide copies of their criminal record check policies. Additionally as
of March of this year, we will request that all second-stage facilities submit
a similar policy. We are developing a new process to meet the recommendation,
and plan to work with our internal privacy branch to ensure that any new
processes comply with privacy requirements.
The final recommendation, on page 69, is
that we analyze and report key performance
information, including turn-away statistics, to determine strategies to address
shortfalls. To address this recommendation we are continuing to monitor and analyze the information that is submitted by transition
houses and second-stage facilities. This does include turn-away and wait-list
statistics.
In conjunction with recommendation 2, we
are considering the best information to analyze and
report, and we will develop a process to formalize our next steps.
That concludes my status update. The
team and I would be happy to answer any questions from committee members. Thank
you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you very much, Deputy
Minister Kratzig, for those comments, and providing
an update as to many of the actions that have been taken by you and your team.
I’ll open it up now to the committee for questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. Thank you and welcome. How long has the ministry had transition
houses and second-stage housing under its umbrella?
Kimberly Kratzig: —
The Ministry of Justice and Attorney General has had transition houses under
our portfolio since 2008, and second-stage housing since 2023.
Joan Pratchler: —
I’m looking at recommendation no. 1 about getting the information out
there to apply for funding and licensing. What are the components or the key
components if one does want to apply for this kind of provision of service?
Kimberly Kratzig: — I’ll maybe
start just by saying that this is one of the recommendations that will be
addressed, you know, quite soon in terms of ensuring that there is information
on the government website that makes it clear for those who are interested. You
know, who they would contact in our ministry to have those discussions and get
a general understanding of what is required.
I’ll turn it
over to Gina Alexander, who is the executive
director of this area, just to walk through some of the considerations in terms
of an application of this regard.
Gina Alexander:
— Good morning. So when communities are interested in or are contemplating a
transition house, several of the things that we would be looking at if and when
approached would be what the community need is, number one. What the community
need is, so like a needs assessment. And then what other services are available
in that particular community that might be similar to services that other
transition houses are currently providing, where a nearest transition house
might be as well, and then understanding where the community might be in terms
of the finances that they will need in order to initiate or start up a
transition house. And so that would be part of the discussions that we would
have initially with a community that was reaching out to us.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. Recommendation no. 2 talks about determining key performance
information required. What would be the barriers to . . . Why is it
happening now? What were the barriers that it didn’t happen before having those
indicators?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I think I’ll maybe start just in terms of this one. I think it’s a
recommendation that makes a lot of sense. And the Provincial Auditor talks
about value in terms of ensuring that information that is collected is adding
value to the ministry, adding value to the transition house as well. So again,
this is an area that has been sort of moved over to the ministry and over the
years we have improved our agreements with the transition houses.
And I think that, you know, this
auditor’s report really provides us with an opportunity to look deeply at, what
are we collecting? Is it the right information? Who’s benefiting from it?
Because I think we want people to be spending their time doing important work
that’s valuable to them as transition houses, and that we’re really outlining,
what are our expectations as a ministry and what do we need to know? So it
paints a picture of, I think, a lot of very good information is being
collected.
It’s not the exact same information from
every house. So I think that the recommendation will move us to that next level
of sort of quality assurance and ensuring that we are getting the right
information, that there’s a consistent comparison across.
So I don’t know that there’s been a
barrier. I would think it’s just more of an evolution as we’re moving to an
even more refined sort of oversight role in this area.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. Has the ministry considered any form of advertising to outreach to
existing or potential applications for transition house operators?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— It’s not something that we’ve really considered in terms of, you know,
soliciting this type of business, if you will. I think that if there is a need
that a community identifies, you know, it’s something that we would have a
conversation about. There has not been an increase in the number of transition
houses in several years. I think that we are always looking at all of our
analysis in terms of, are we meeting the needs? What is required? Different
communities have access to different other supports, etc.
So I think it’s something we regularly
look at, but there’s nothing planned in terms of a call-out to see where the
interest is. In many of the communities there are, you know, most communities
have very robust CBO [community-based organization] networks of people who
understand what the needs of their community are. Yeah.
Joan Pratchler: —
Is there any consideration to do so?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— It’s not something that we’re considering right now, based on our
understanding of sort of the current state.
Joan Pratchler: —
And where would information about becoming an operator be posted on the
website? Which website or where would that be, once that gets rolled out?
[10:45]
Kimberly Kratzig:
Our current thinking is that it will be on Saskatchewan.ca,
the Justice part of the government’s website, where there is other information
about different supports for, you know, people who are experiencing domestic
violence, interpersonal violence, etc.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. Could you share with us what the ministry has learned so far in analyzing the information submitted by transition houses?
Gina
Alexander: — So we do collect quite a bit of
information. We are in close contact. Although we aren’t necessarily at the
transition house on a frequent basis, we are in close contact with the
transition houses. Our program managers are — and as already discussed —
developing and maintaining a very close relationship with all of them.
We collect a lot of information. And
some of the information that we collect, we call them outputs. So they’re
things like age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, location of home address,
reason for a length of stay. Those are examples of some of the data that we
collect. We also collect from agencies a number of turn-aways as well, and the
reason why people were turned away from the transition house, and if the person
was referred to other services, which typically often happens if there is no
room and they fit the criteria of that particular transition house.
So one of the things that we’ve been
doing over the last couple of years, which has led to a little bit where we are
today, is we wanted to work with the transition houses to measure not only how
many people are there, how many people are turned away, the number of
counselling services that are provided — we also wanted to and have been
working with them to measure outcomes. What’s different for that individual
from when they crossed the threshold to come in and when they leave the
threshold? And the outcomes are a little bit more complicated. We’re new at
identifying what they are and also measuring them because they’re usually
longer term ways of identifying success.
And so we find ourselves kind of in the
middle of not a complete transition because we will still collect some of the
outputs that we currently collect, like number of people, number of turn-aways,
number of people referred to services. But we’re also working very closely with
the transition houses to measure outcomes, like is there an increase of safety
for that particular family? Did they experience an increase in basic needs like
food and shelter? Did they get the emergent or crisis service averted based on
their experience with the transition house? And do they have a little bit more
information about their legal rights and also more information about financial
security as well? Some people fleeing violence have no, as many people know, no
access to funds, maybe not even have a bank account. So facilitating those
kinds of things.
So those outcomes, we’ve been working
closely with the transition houses to say, what are the outcomes that might
work for you and your organization? We have some that we must be measuring, and
so we’ve been in consultation with them for several years, which we find
ourselves in kind of like the halfway point in terms of, we don’t want to
measure all the outputs and all the outcomes because that’s going to be too
much for the organization. So where do we kind of find a good middle ground? So
not only do we have the data that we need to potentially make changes, but also
to know that a difference is being made.
So what do we do with that data? We
receive mid-year reports from every transition house. We receive final reports
from every transition house. And at the mid-year point and also at the year-end
point, our program managers are assessing the information that’s being
provided, being connected with the transition houses if there is anything that
is looking different or maybe a bit confusing. And it’s not just those two
times that we’re connected with them though. They are often making sure that we
know if they’re struggling or they’re also having very good successes as well.
And so we use that information to shape
the work that we’re doing, sometimes with other transition houses. And we use
the work to identify where the provincial need might be. So one community might
think that they need a transition house, but maybe there’s some different data
that tells us maybe there’s a different need in another part of the province.
And then we ask the question, is the need a transition house or are there other
services that aren’t transition house services that would fill that need in that
part of that community or that part of the province? So that is the work that
we do and what we keep in mind as we’re working with the transition houses.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — I want to turn our
attention back to the licensing aspect of the report. Page 56 of the auditor’s
report mentioned that they found an “instance of a transition house operating
without a licence because the ministry did not fund it.” However, as per The
Residential Services Regulations, “the ministry requires any
community-based organization operating a transition house in the province to be
licensed.”
So
my question is, what is the ministry doing to ensure that unfunded transition
houses are compliant with The Residential Services Act?
Gina Alexander: — The Residential Services Act
and its regulations only require the ministry to license transition houses that
are funded by the provincial government. Second-stage houses are not required
to be licensed, and part of this dates back to when the regulations were
drafted in 2022 and the ministry made a policy decision to only require
transition houses that were receiving provincial funds to be licensed.
Now having
said all of that, transition houses, licensed or not, would still be subject to
other common legislation that sets standards for health and safety — for
example, The Public Health Act, The Fire Safety Act, The
Construction Codes Act, and The Food Safety Regulations. So an
entity that wasn’t funded by the Government of Saskatchewan would be called
upon to rely on those pieces of legislation in order to ensure that they are
complying with them.
And I believe
at the time there was a discussion about some similarities between child care
spaces in Saskatchewan where there are both licensed and non-licensed child
care spaces, and the non-licensed child care spaces still need to be subject to
common legislation.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA
Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — So just a quick follow-up on that then. So
at a community-based organization, somebody could start their own transition
home — fully funded, not be subject to a licence provision, but subject to
other regulatory requirements. But I’m just curious then. One of them probably
would not be ensuring all their staff have an appropriate CR [criminal record]
check or verification background and/or appropriate training. Do I understand
that correctly?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I think that what you’ve described is potentially a scenario. But I wouldn’t
assume that it’s a scenario because many community-based organizations,
religious organizations, others that may choose to operate a facility like this
outside of government funding would often have many of those. Like I can’t
guarantee that they would, but I don’t know that it would be an assumption that
they wouldn’t.
But the scenario you’re describing is
somewhat accurate. They would not have to comply with the same regulations
under The Residential Services Act if they’re not licensed.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: —
Can I draw our attention to page 63 of the report, specifically looking at
“Rationale Lacking for Funding,” actually is the title.
We all know things cost more in the
North, period. When I look at the information provided here, overall for a
transition house in the North they receive $15,000, I’m assuming a year per
space. While urban — Regina is specifically mentioned here — $51,000. So things
cost more in the North but it gets $15,000 less than the South, and they get
$51,000. And when that is broken down to per survivor, only $980 would be
provided for North while over 6,000, 6,500 is provided per survivor here in
Regina.
My question is, what would be the key
indicators that you would consider in rationalizing this funding model and, in
particular, addressing that stark funding gap between northern and urban?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— We’ll maybe start with this, and then we can ask Gina to fill in some of the
blanks. I would say that, you know, this is a recommendation again. It is
something that we are committed to looking at to get a deeper understanding of
the issues that the auditor has raised. You know, the funding has continued
based on the model that was in place when transition houses came into the
Ministry of Justice.
So I think we will be doing a deep dive
— working with the transition houses, working with other partners in the human
service ministries — to understand what elements they are looking at in
funding, doing some pan-Canadian scanning to see other funding. Again it’s not
really about amounts. It’s about the how and what’s considered in terms of the
funding.
I think that — and Gina will talk about
what some of the differences might be — not every transition house is providing
the same suite of services, if you will. So while I can’t speak to the
specifics that you’ve talked about, that could be part of it that there’s
different staffing levels, different levels of service are being provided,
different salaries are being provided. A whole range of things may be at play
in the situation that you’re describing, so one transition house is not
identical to the other. We’ve heard about that, you know, throughout the report
in terms of the services that they’re providing.
[11:00]
So Gina can maybe talk about some of the
other, you know, hypotheses for why the funding is as it is. But it has been in
place since at least 2008 at this model that we’re looking at. But, Gina, I’ll
turn it over to you to maybe share some additional context.
Gina Alexander:
— So just to add just a little bit more information there, is that each shelter
at the beginning of a funding cycle is provided with the same logic model that
includes the different services that they could be providing. And they will
identify in conjunction with us what services they are interested in providing,
that they’re capable of providing. And then that becomes part of the agreement
that the ministry has with them.
And so for example, to follow up on
what’s already said, there are some transition houses that provide crisis line
support of which operational funding is provided to. And then there’s some
transition houses that don’t provide crisis line support. Some will provide
child care support. Some will provide transportation support. Some will provide
different types of crisis counselling or counselling, and others won’t. And it
depends a lot on what are the services that are available in their community,
and what are the services that they, in their board-led community-based
organization, are capable and wanting to do.
Joan Pratchler: —
So just going back to the deeper dive that’s going to be happening, I trust
there’ll be lots of consultation with up north — I mean that’s a big variance
from not even $1,000 to almost $7,000 difference between the two — to find out
what they . . . Like, is it the chicken and egg? What do they need?
Did they really need more funding in the first place to be able to offer this
service, or are they doing the best they can with the little bit they have, and
they really needed more?
Is that part of the thing that you’re
going to be looking at, to consult with them?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Yeah, we will for sure. We will definitely consult with the transition houses
on funding, and more the funding model in terms of is it transparent? Is it
clear? I mean, I think that’s what the auditor was getting at. It’s not clearly
defined. You wouldn’t be able to say this is why, definitively, one is.
But the funding model as it stands, the
analysis may turn out that it actually is appropriate and what La Ronge is
doing and what Regina is doing are sufficiently different. Or it may conclude
that it’s not. So I think we’re just at the very early stages.
Appreciate we got the chapter in 2025.
And we want to have a robust policy, a robust process in place because the new
agreements for 2027 are when we’re targeting if there is a change, or at least
being able to explain it in terms of a way that’s transparent to everyone,
including the auditor, and ensuring they feel that it’s an appropriate process.
That’s when we would be targeting to have that in place.
Joan Pratchler: —
Good. Thank you. Why is Saskatchewan funding shelters so low compared to other
provinces?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I think that there are, you know, a number of investments in the
interpersonal violence area that are made by the province. Many ministries are
investing in different elements of this. And Gina will talk a little bit about
what else the Ministry of Justice does, for example, in terms of preventing
interpersonal violence, trying to address these issues.
I think that, again, funding levels are
something that we meet regularly with our transition houses to discuss. Are
they meeting the needs? Are they getting the outcomes they’re looking for? So I
can’t really speak to other provinces because I think that, you know, as we’ve
. . . Even in Saskatchewan not all transition houses are the same. So
I can’t speak to what’s happening in some of the transition houses in other
provinces to even know if it’s an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of your
question.
So I think that I would just say the
transition houses in Saskatchewan have received economic increases as we have
been able to over the past several years. We are looking at the rationalization
issue that’s been raised to ensure that there is clarity and transparency
around how we’re funding our transition houses. And there has been a commitment
and investment from the province in a variety of other interpersonal areas,
interpersonal violence areas to work at the whole — from prevention to
transition houses to services after transition houses — investment in
second-stage housing that we’ve talked a little bit about today.
So I’ll maybe just give Gina just an
opportunity to give you just a slice or a flavour of some of the other services
that are available for people who are impacted by interpersonal violence,
domestic violence if you will. Gina, do you want to maybe just walk through
that?
Gina
Alexander: — So since 2018 the ministry has drawn
on a number of reports and recommendations, including the 2018 domestic
violence death review and now more recently the release of the 2024 domestic
violence death review. We’ve referenced the Truth and Reconciliation
recommendations and Calls to Action including missing and murdered Indigenous
women and girls. Constant contact with the agencies like the Provincial
Association of Transition Houses who are looking, like others, looking to
improve services for victims; and Sexual Assault Services of Saskatchewan who
released a report in 2019 with recommendations.
So we call on those. We attend and take
into consideration all of those reports. We pay attention to what’s happening
across the province, and we work from a prevention and intervention perspective
as it relates to victims.
And so in addition I’m going to talk
first about services that are provided by victim services, which is also part
of the Ministry of Justice. So specifically victim services responds to matters
like this, you know, at 2 o’clock in the morning or at 2 o’clock in the
afternoon, when there is police involvement, to assist victims to find safety
and be referred to appropriate services, given their current circumstances. And
also there is children-exposed-to-violence programs across the province too
that work on a prevention/intervention perspective. Many of the children who
are referred to children-exposed-to-violence programs across the province are
witnesses of violence and violence in the home.
And so this programming, which is
located in a number of provinces across Saskatchewan, including in the North,
assist youth and children who have witnessed or experienced interpersonal
violence and abuse, with the goal to help prevent them from becoming victims
themselves, or people who cause harm. Because that’s often part of the cycle as
well.
There’s enhanced residential programs
that the ministry also provides funding to, of which there are three in the
province. And they provide shelter and support to individual women and their
accompanying children who have issues beyond family violence, including
addictions, including mental health issues and concerns, and including
homelessness. So these folks may or may not have access to a transition house,
but they could have access to enhanced residential programs. So I just wanted
to highlight that as it’s very connected to this dialogue.
One of the new programs as it relates to
prevention and intervention that is under way in several communities in
Saskatchewan — newer, I’m going to say newer — is family intervention rapid
support teams. And what these teams do is they work with service providers,
other service providers, including police in various communities. And they will
find out what family is struggling, and they’ll start doing outreach work with
that family to assist them together to create safety plans, to get connected to
services, to approach the family of which there is often a lot of fear for the
person who’s causing the harm and the person who is being harmed or the people
that are being harmed. And these outreach workers work to connect with these
families in order to help prevent future violence that’s occurring.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I think that we wanted to sort of provide that. I know this is a chapter
about transition houses, but just to ensure that the committee members were
aware that, you know, transition houses is one part of a much broader sort of
ecosystem I would say, and the government is really committed to investing in
all areas of this. So I just wanted to ensure that we had an opportunity
. . . I didn’t want to take too much time on the other matters, but I
did want to have an opportunity to ensure that that was understood as well.
Joan Pratchler: —
There’s a lot of prongs in addressing that.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Yeah.
Joan Pratchler: — Just
talking about inspecting transition homes, when will the ministry begin to
inspect those transition homes? And what will the inspections focus on?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— We plan to start to sort of transition into transition houses, but we
transition into inspecting transition houses by this winter. By winter of 2026
is when plan to do that. Gina will talk a little bit about what that will look
like. Although we’re not sort of formally, as the auditor’s outlined,
inspecting them now, there is a form of inspection that has happened and will
sort of resume happening. So, Gina, do you want to talk a little bit about
that?
Gina Alexander:
— I will. So although we haven’t been in the practice of inspecting every
transition home annually, we have been in the practice of inspecting two
transition houses per year. And so for example this year one inspection has
been completed, ’25‑26, and another will be . . . Sorry, has
been completed already, and then another will be completed in March of 2026.
So it was more on kind of like an audit
kind of basis as opposed to a regular occurrence. And some of the things that
we are doing currently is collecting proof of inspections from medical health
officers, fire inspectors, and building inspectors, collecting proof of
insurance. Every transition house must fill out a program and special standards
report that verifies that their facilities continue to meet standards outlined
in the regulations and also then, by extension, the contract that we have with
them.
And when the program managers are out,
if they’re not meeting the executive director off-site, which is what was
talked about earlier, they are paying attention to what’s happening in the
transition house when they are meeting them for a mid-year conference or
meeting, or a year-end meeting as well. So if they’re seeing things like work
that might be done that hasn’t been reported to us, or things that look not in
keeping with what our expectations are and what the agreement outlines, those
would be raised at those times as well.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay, thank you. I guess one of the last topics I want to take a look at is the
turn-away statistics. So mentioned in the report, 18 per cent of people that
accessed or were going to access transition houses were turned away, and the
reason was due to capacity issues.
[11:15]
When I look at that 18 per cent, is that
one, almost one in five women — I’m assuming mostly women — that want to access
help can’t because of capacity issues. I trust that that is something that is
being worked on. And in order to do that, I guess that’s what we’re looking at,
recommendation 6 where it says, you know, what would be the reasons for that.
And so you’re in the process of doing that, it appears here.
So just given best practices
. . . And transition houses have been around for a long time. So
given best practices in research and in your experience and in your, you know,
relationship with the transition houses over the years — and also, you know,
nationwide and I’m sure similar situations around — what are the typical KPIs [key performance indicator] you would want to look at
when you’re trying to find out why you’ve got this 18 per cent turn-away
situation?
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I think Gina can speak more to turn-aways and what we’re looking at and what
we need to understand and what we will be sort of doing going forward. But I
think that I want to point out that not all turn-aways are a result of capacity
issues. And I think that’s one of the sort of maybe assumptions that’s built
in, and certainly an assumption that I might have had when I came to the
ministry and was learning about this area.
There are other reasons that individuals
could be turned away. For example, they may have a history with the shelter in
terms of violence, drugs, other issues. So there could be other reasons for
that. So we do collect monthly turn-away stats, and I’ll let Gina maybe talk
about what else they look at when they look at the 18 per cent, what it means,
and the conversations that we have.
Gina Alexander:
— When a transition house that’s funded by this government is faced with
turn-aways or someone on their doorstep needing assistance and it falls within
their mandate and they have no beds or no room, what they do first is find out,
is there another transition house that’s close that the individual can be
transported to? So that’s one of the first exercises that they would do, or
calls that they would do.
If that doesn’t work, they will seek out
opportunities to find a hotel that will allow that person to have at least that
night and then with some follow-up, a safe place to sleep, themselves or with
their children.
And then the other thing in addition to
that, they will provide services that are available in the community or
available through opportunities that may not be in the community, but may be
available for these individuals so that they aren’t turning away with nothing
and nowhere safe to go.
One of the things that we know about the
transition houses is they, of course, don’t like to turn people away. But if
they’re full and they can’t, of course, take more people on, they’ll do
everything that they can to assist those people that are on their doorstep at
that particular time.
If you are interested I have a little
bit of data around the types of turn-aways that . . . Okay.
So in 2023‑24 — and I also have
’24‑25 but the data is quite close so I’ll just talk about ’23‑24
just because it’s in close time proximity to the audit — there were 6,674
turn-aways in total that were reported to the ministry by all of the transition
houses. 472 were substance misuse. 1,276 were that there was no identified
indicators. So people were saying, I’m a victim of domestic violence but the
transition house couldn’t verify it — and they are really good at verifying it
and they will always give the individual the benefit of the doubt — so just
also know that they are in situations where they’re saying, we cannot verify
that this person is a victim of domestic violence.
160 was an inappropriate referral, so
someone sent someone to a transition house inappropriately. Probably not
intentionally necessarily, but they got referred to the wrong place. The good
thing about the transition houses is they’ll often get people to the right
place, if they know what the services are that are available.
Historical conflict with the agency,
there was 160. Does not meet the mandate, 2,434. What comes immediately to mind
is someone who maybe doesn’t have a home or is finding themselves without a
safe place to sleep but isn’t necessarily a victim of domestic violence. And
then 75 were compromising safety of staff or residents.
So just to give you an idea of some of
the other reasons that people are turned away. That doesn’t diminish the
importance of people having the services that they need when they do meet the mandate,
which is I think the point of your question.
Joan Pratchler: —
Just following up on the information you gave me, was that disaggregated
between North and South, urban, at all?
Gina Alexander:
— It was all of the transition houses that we have right now. In the
information . . . This data is from all of the transition houses. I
don’t have anything deeper in terms of an explanation about how much happened
in the North or rural or urban.
Joan Pratchler: —
Should we have that disaggregated to better address . . . That’s just
a rhetorical question. But you know, there probably is a difference.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Maybe I’ll try and
kill two birds with one stone with this question. If you feel it needs to be
split, feel free to do so in your response.
You
know, we’re talking about staff at these transition homes and some second-stage
homes that are working with people of course in a very vulnerable category. And
I’m just curious what efforts the ministry is making to ensure that the staff
in the case of transition homes, perhaps second-stage homes, are being provided
with informed training to deal with the type of vulnerable groups of which they
are responsible. And that they’re also ensuring that the ministry ensures that
the staff at these facilities are undergoing CR checks on a frequent basis, criminal
record checks.
Gina Alexander:
— So I don’t have a list of the training that transition houses provide, and
keep in mind that part of the training would be at the discretion of the board
of the community-based organization as well. What we will be doing as we move
forward is . . . Yeah, I don’t have it with me. We may very well be
collecting that information, so I just want to acknowledge that first.
As we move forward on the criminal
record checks to the point that you made and working with the agencies around
key performance indicators, we must talk about what the training is that is
being provided. Because the training must match up, I think to your point, with
the key performance indicators that are either already in place for some of the
agencies or will be part of the future of the work that they’re doing.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions on this
chapter here? Listen, good questions. Thanks for the focus of this work,
Auditor. Thanks to all those involved in this very important work, the
commitments that have been made here today. I’d welcome a motion now to concur
and note progress with recommendation no. 1. Moved by Deputy Chair
Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s carried. And I’d
welcome a motion to concur with recommendations 2 through 6. Moved by MLA Chan.
All agreed? Okay, that’s carried.
Okay, we’re going to turn our attention
now to the chapter 18 report and I’ll kick it back over the Provincial Auditor
for presentation.
Victor
Schwab: — Thank you. Chapter 18 of our 2025
report volume 2 describes the results of our second follow-up on the Ministry
of Justice and Attorney General’s actions on the recommendations we originally
made in 2021 regarding processes to conduct timely and accurate coroner
investigations into certain unexpected, unnatural, or unexplained deaths.
We originally made eight
recommendations. By July 2023 the ministry implemented six recommendations, and
by July 2025 the coroners service implemented the two outstanding
recommendations. We found the Saskatchewan Coroners Service now regularly analyzes timelines for completing coroner investigations
and final reports, as well as timelines for communicating results with families
to ensure compliance with its policy.
The coroners service’s policy requires
coroners to prepare, review, and complete investigations in a coroner report
within 24 business days of receiving all investigative information. The policy
also requires coroners to communicate investigative results to families or next
of kin within five business days after completing an investigation.
The coroners service assesses its
timeline report summary each quarter to determine the average number of days
taken to complete investigations and to communicate the results with families.
We tested 10 coroner cases not meeting the required timeline of five business
days and found the coroners service identified reasons for these delays and
took corrective action.
We also found the average number of days
to communicate with families went from 22 business days in ’23‑24 to 12
business days in ’24‑25 for cases requiring toxicology reports. For
coroner reports, complex cases had coroner reports completed on average within
32 days in ’24‑25. Monitoring and completing timely coroner reports and
communication with families provides closure for deceased persons’ relatives.
I will now pause for the committee’s
consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks again for the important
focus here and the follow-up on this front. Of course this committee has
considered these recommendations and supported them, and I appreciate the
status update stating the implementation by the ministry on this front. I’d
look for a brief remark from the deputy minister, and then we’d open it up if
there’s questions.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you very much. I’d first like to introduce Jeff Wagner, who is our
Chief Coroner from Saskatchewan Coroners Service who is here, and Rory Jensen,
our assistant deputy minister of courts and community justice division.
The ministry really appreciates again
the work the Provincial Auditor’s team did on this chapter, and we are pleased
that the final two recommendations are fully implemented. I’d like to express
my thank you to the Saskatchewan Coroners Service team for their timely
implementation for the recommendations.
That concludes the update, and we’d be
happy to answer any questions you may have on this one.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks again. Committee
members, are there any questions? MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Just a couple. Just with respect to
managing the reporting to families, I noticed that the auditor general had made
note that you were meeting your five-day timeline of notifying families and
next of kin where the investigations of the cases did not involve post-mortem
exams or toxicology investigations, but that you weren’t meeting it where it
did.
And I understand that there are some
processes in place to deal with those situations. I’m just wondering if you
could share briefly with the committee how you’re managing that in those
instances where the investigations did require a post-mortem examination.
[11:30]
Jeff Wagner:
— Thanks for the question. So basically it’s a bit more complicated when it
does require a toxicology examination and a post-mortem. So the reasons
sometimes they’re not meeting those timelines is that it takes time to consult
with the forensic pathologist or the toxicologist. So that’s the basic reason
why we’re not meeting those timelines.
When the forensic pathologist completes
their report, it will have the cause and matter of death, which helps them in
their final report. But when the toxicologist completes their report, it often
involves consultations again back to the forensic pathologist to interpret it
and to understand what it is. The toxicologist will often just tell, you know,
it will be a certain amount of drug in a blood test, but then they need help
with interpreting that into how that relates to the cause and manner.
So that causes delay, and so that’s why
we’re not sometimes meeting those timelines, because it’s a bit more
complicated.
Hugh Gordon: — My question
generally was just how are you managing those situations, overseeing them,
ensuring that you get close to the timelines that you wish to meet.
Jeff Wagner:
— Yeah, part of the way we’re managing it is that we do have our timelines and
we have lots of parameters. Nothing gets measured, nothing gets done, so we’re
measuring those. We have monthly meetings. We have a quarterly time report that
comes out quarterly, staff meetings when we notice that there are delays. We’ll
reach out to the relevant coroner, remind them that they’re missing their
timelines. So it’s an ongoing process.
Hugh Gordon: — I guess I’m just
wondering if you could share with us too a few, because I think that
recommendation was from 2025, so it’s a new recommendation or fairly new
recommendation. Sorry. 2021, sorry, was the report.
I’m just wondering if you’ve already
noticed an improvement in the way you’re providing this service and/or making
your notifications, completing your reports, from the implementation of this
recommendation.
Jeff Wagner:
— I would say yes, we are seeing an improvement. It’s slowly getting better as
we go through our timelines. So on all the different parameters, you know, we
have a bunch of different criteria that we measure quarterly, and I would say
that it is getting better slowly.
Hugh Gordon: — Last question, and
I’ll reserve this for . . . I guess it doesn’t need to be answered
now, but I’m just wondering if you’re keeping track of the number of deaths
that there were last year, for example, and/or what the breakdown of the
categories, causes of those deaths might be.
You don’t need to answer it now. If it’s
going to be timely . . . If it’s going to take a while to provide a
response back to the committee, we’re more than happy to receive that in due
course.
Jeff
Wagner: — We post all of our stats on the
website, so they’re posted monthly and quarterly on different things. So most
of our stats are there, and I guess if you had any questions, we could answer
those specifically.
Hugh Gordon: — I’m today years
old. Thank you very much. That’s all of my questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Is there any further questions on
this chapter? Not seeing any, of course we see implementation here. We’ve
supported these recommendations in the past, so I’d welcome a motion to
conclude consideration of chapter 18. Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All
agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s carried.
Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Moving right along, we’re going to
turn our attention to the legal aid, the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission.
I’ll table their status update, PAC 71‑30, Saskatchewan Legal Aid
Commission: Status update, dated January 20th, 2026.
This too, there’s not any new
recommendations in this chapter; it’s a follow-up. But I’ll turn it over to the
Provincial Auditor to make a brief presentation. I guess we have officials that
are just joining us here today. Thank you so much for joining us. And I’ll turn
it over to the Provincial Auditor to make her remarks, and then we’ll come your
way, Deputy Minister.
Tara
Clemett: — Okay, I’ll start, and my deputy
provincial auditor will be ready to go by the time I’m done.
So good morning, Deputy Chair — that’s
okay — Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair, committee members, and officials. With me today
is Mr. Jason Shaw, and he’s the deputy provincial auditor that is responsible
for the portfolio of work that includes the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission.
And then again behind us is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach, our liaison with this
committee.
Jason is going to present the one
chapter noted on the agenda, which is a follow-up on past recommendations that
we did make at the Legal Aid Commission. They were previously considered and
agreed to by this committee, and both recommendations have been fully
implemented. I do thank the president and CEO [chief executive officer] of the
commission and her staff for the co-operation that was extended to us during
the course of our work.
With that, I’ll turn it over to Jason.
Jason Shaw:
— Thank you. Under The Legal Aid Act, the Saskatchewan Legal Aid
Commission is responsible for providing publicly funded legal aid services as
well as for establishing procedures to determine applicants’ eligibility and to
assess requests for legal services. At March 31st, 2024, the commission
employed 174 staff positions throughout the province who handled over 18,000
legal aid cases. In 2023‑24, the commission spent about $34 million
providing legal aid services.
Chapter 28 in our 2024 report volume 2,
starting on page 253, reports the results of the progress made on the last two
remaining recommendations initially made in our 2016 audit. By August 2024, the
Legal Aid Commission implemented the two outstanding recommendations regarding
providing legal aid services to eligible persons.
In section 3.1, we found the commission
more accurately captures the status of legal aid cases in its electronic case
management system and closes files timely after the last case activity. Keeping
file status accurate and up to date helps ensure efficient allocation of
resources as it does not make it look like lawyers still have a high caseload
when files should be closed, and supports effective case tracking.
We assessed the commission’s internal
review of 208 closed files from April to December 2023, which found a
reasonably high rate of compliance, around 80 per cent or higher, for
completion of closing forms within seven days of court work being done and admin
staff closing files in the electronic case management system.
In section 3.2, we found the commission
conducted performance reviews of its staff lawyers annually. We found the
commission conducted annual performance reviews using standardized templates
within time frames specified by its performance management policy. We found it
completed all 2022‑23 fiscal year evaluations for lawyers who were
eligible to be assessed and had rationale for lawyers not assessed. Completing
performance evaluations allows for timely corrective action and promote a
supportive culture of professional engagement.
This concludes my presentation. Thank
you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Well thank you for that presentation
and the follow-up. Thanks as well for detailing the actions that have been
taken to implement these recommendations. I’d like to welcome the leadership of
the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission to the committee, and I’ll turn it over
to Deputy Minister Kratzig to introduce officials and
provide brief remarks. Of course we’ve considered this chapter in the past.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— Thank you. I’d like to introduce Jayne Mallin, the CEO of the Saskatchewan
Legal Aid Commission, and Kylie Head who is the assistant deputy attorney
general for justice services and tribunals division in the Justice ministry.
We’re really pleased that the final two recommendations are fully implemented.
I’d like to thank the Provincial Auditor and the Saskatchewan Legal Aid
Commission teams for the work they did on the chapter.
This concludes my update, and we would
be happy to answer any questions you might have.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Well thank you very much. Thanks to
all those involved in the work that’s reflected in those updates.
I’ll open up now to committee members
for questions. MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Hi. Thank you for
being here today. It’s an important service that’s provided to the people of
the province — not just those who are accused of crimes but also folks that
require family law services and other services they wouldn’t normally be able
to access. So I commend the work that you are doing and thank you for your
efforts.
With respect to the case management
system, your electronic management system . . . And I just was
curious if you could provide some insight to the committee how the improved
accuracy of your data using that system has assisted in managing lawyer
caseloads and to help you to allocate resources more effectively.
Jayne Mallin:
— Thank you for your question. We have a case management tool that’s been in
place actually for about 10 years now, and it’s actually coming to what we
would consider end of life. So what we’ve done to supplement the accuracy of
our counts is implemented a Power BI [Power Business Intelligence] Microsoft
tool to be able to export data into and better manipulate and track all of the
data points that are important for us to make sure that we understand our
caseloads, understand our service needs and trends, and to be able to analyze value for money. So we’re using a supplemental tool
while we explore the replacement of our case management tool.
Hugh Gordon: — Could you maybe
expand a little bit on your case management tool? What are some of the elements
of that that are assisting in managing caseloads? Some indicators
. . . I don’t know if they’re key performance indicators or ranking
of the types of file work that’s done. I know when I — former life in the RCMP
[Royal Canadian Mounted Police] — you know, that would be an element of every
file we worked on in terms of expected amount of time and effort required to do
investigations and, in your case, provide adequate services depending on the
file.
Jayne Mallin:
— So we look at the number of files staff are carrying. We look at time on
file. We weight the files based on area of law. For instance, the duty counsel
file is not equivalent to a full-service criminal file, is not equivalent to a
full-service family file. And so we weight those file types.
And time entry, we are looking at
improving our time entry data capture. It’s not something that is easy to do
given the nature of the work in some, you know, in some courts. But we’re
looking at time entry as a way to really understand. So time entry, file
counts, file opening, file closing, those are some of the data points that we
look at.
Hugh Gordon: — When you’re
referring to that, you’re also referring to case complexity?
Jayne Mallin: — We do rank our
files based on complexity. We can rank our files based on complexity. We can
look at our senior lawyers and look in to see whether or not their case count,
if it’s somewhat lower than their counterpart, are they carrying more murder
files, manslaughter files? We can look at that. And the legal directors, who
are responsible for oversight in the area offices, use that tool to make sure
that the file load is allocated and balanced across the staff.
Hugh Gordon: — Kind of carrying
on with that, you know, when I was in the RCMP I had plenty of time in court
and, you know, a lot of time I could tell the effort that folks for the Legal
Aid Commission are tasked with doing. I know their workload was high. And I’m
dating myself, going back some time now. I don’t suspect it’s gotten much
easier for them. And I know, I mean I can assume what difficulties it was for
them to manage their caseloads.
And on that point, I was just wondering
if some of these improvements in caseload management with your system, if that
has actually assisted in improving the service and of reducing caseload for
those legal aid lawyers — and staff I imagine too — engaged in the work that
they do.
Jayne Mallin: — Yeah, good question. Thank you. We’re
currently undergoing a digitization initiative as well, and we think that we
are going to be able to find some efficiencies for our staff through
digitization. So the more information and documentation that we can have in one
place, attached to one file, is easier for everybody. So the administrative
support is working on finding those efficiencies, supporting the lawyers,
making sure our files are well documented and easily accessed. And we think
that that’s going to go a long way towards supporting efficiency for the staff
lawyers.
Hugh Gordon: — Is that something that’s in process or
continually evolving?
Jayne Mallin: — In process and continually evolving, yes.
Hugh Gordon: — Well that’s great to hear. I remember the
days where I used to have to keep two separate physical files and have to
carbon copy everything whenever I did an investigation. And then I was quite
grateful that the RCMP decided to upgrade to an electronic management system
that made it easier for everybody. I don’t know if it made the work go away,
but it certainly made it easier doing that work. So I’m glad to
hear that the commission is making efforts in that regard.
With respect to staffing, I’ll ask you
to educate the committee on this. Do you feel that you have enough staff —
lawyers at the commission and support staff working at the commission — in
order to appropriately handle your current caseload?
Jayne Mallin:
— Yeah, we’re constantly evaluating our staff numbers, and we have gone from
. . . In 2020 we had 82.65 staff lawyers, and in 2025 we have 97.65.
So we’ve increased our staff lawyer complement quite significantly as well as
our administrative staff complement. We’re always looking at that to make sure
that we’re matching.
[11:45]
As we’ve been trying to reduce our
private-bar case counts to bring things in-house, we’ve been looking at our
staff complements and we actually have six brand new positions posted as we
speak to look at our major cases. So we’ve got three major case managers and
three major case lawyer positions open that we’re actively recruiting for,
because we know that those caseloads and those types of cases, as you were
mentioning earlier, the complexity of cases, really needs to be looked at
differently. And so that’s what we’re doing now.
Hugh Gordon: — I was wondering
also how these improvements have assisted in providing better access to legal
aid services for eligible clients, particularly folks that are in remote or in
underserved areas of the province?
Jayne Mallin:
— Yeah, another good question. Thank you. We’re looking at trying to, as we
improve our administrative efficiencies, trying to redirect those resources to
the front-line services. So for instance, we have a legal assistant in
Saskatoon city who is now going into court and supporting the lawyer in
therapeutic courts and in youth courts and in out-of-custody dockets. And so
trying to put more services to the front line as we find those administrative
efficiencies so that the services are put to the client.
We have a call centre, an application
centre, that allows anyone to access our services by phone or online or go into
any of the area offices we have in 13 communities across the province. And they
can also access our services through applications in the courthouse. And so we
try to make sure that there’s no wrong door, that there’s access across the
province. And our administrative or our technology supports that. We have
access through LAIN [Legal Aid Information Network] again to be able to input
and make sure that those applications are properly tracked.
Hugh Gordon: — It sounds like
you’re trying to address some barriers that people have to acquire the
services. Are there any other barriers that maybe weren’t mentioned in the
report that you’re currently actively addressing in terms of providing that
service to people in need?
Jayne Mallin:
— Yeah, another good question. Access to justice is our priority. We would
consider that our key priority. And so what we’re looking at now is those
communities that don’t have an area office in them. While we go out to circuit
points — we fly into communities to provide services in courts — we’re looking
at ways that we can support those communities more directly on the ground. And
we’re looking at whether or not again we can redirect some resources,
administrative resources, to those underserved communities in the North in
particular.
One of the things we’re also undertaking
is a reconciliation action plan. Many of our clients are, you know,
unfortunately overrepresented in the justice system, overrepresented in the
child protection system and in the criminal system. And so we’re hoping that we
can put people in place that can support them at the early stages and start to
focus a little bit more on early intervention through our reconciliation action
plan and our new strategic plan that will come up in 2026.
Hugh Gordon: — How are some of
these case management improvements assisting and reducing client wait times?
Jayne Mallin:
— I’m just trying to think whether or not they . . . how that is
having an impact, whether the technology is having an impact. I mean I suppose
it would go to the tracking again. It’s easier to track when files come in,
when they’re assigned, and when they’re followed up. We’re trying to support
our staff to use the LAIN in that way as well, to make sure that they input
those key dates and so that we have the information to track that.
We do track regularly our wait times to
make sure that they’re, you know, within our range. The problem sometimes is
vacancies in certain offices. So sometimes we’ll have difficulty in certain
offices with staffing, and then wait times naturally increase.
Hugh Gordon: — With respect to
performance evaluations, so beyond timely completion, how are you ensuring that
performance evaluations are meaningful and consistent and are effectively
identifying areas for professional development or support?
Jayne Mallin:
— Another good question. Our people and culture team is really good at ensuring
we’re following best practices for our performance evaluations. We make sure
that we have two or three goals for each staff so that, as you say, the
evaluation is meaningful for them as well as it is for us. We want to know what
our staff are hoping to achieve, where they’d like to go in terms of
development for their career. And so we’re looking at two to three goals
typically for each staff.
We’re again improving that in the coming
months. We’re looking at making sure that we’re cascading our strategic
priorities down from . . . that are set by the commission to our
senior leadership and then through our senior leadership to our legal directors
and then through our leadership to our staff lawyers, so that the entire
organization understands that they’re a part of the overall bigger picture and
they have a meaningful contribution to those strategic priorities. So on top of
personal goals and development goals, we’re also looking at whether or not
they’re meeting our organizational strategic priorities.
Hugh Gordon: — And you’re finding
that that’s been a beneficial part of the evaluation process is participation,
engagement, awareness, all those other benefits?
Jayne Mallin:
— Yeah. We have received actually really positive feedback from our staff about
the staff evaluation process. They appreciate it. They participate in it. And I
think overall it’s a good-news story.
Hugh Gordon: — Maybe last
question. Maybe getting back to staff complement, etc. Are you finding
. . . and I guess it’s related to caseload as well. Are you finding
the commission is receiving adequate funding in order to meet your obligations
and the expected amount of work that goes into the caseloads you have?
Jayne Mallin:
— That’s a difficult question to answer. The short answer is yes. The longer
answer is there’s always an increased demand. And so within our current scope
we have sufficient funds to meet our needs. We are enhancing our services to
include immigration and refugee law to commence in summer 2026, and we have
additional funding coming from the federal government to support that
initiative. So as our services grow and enhance, our funding grows as well.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough. And
maybe one last question. Maybe getting back to your file closing policy. When
you did the review, was there anything in particular that stood out? Any
findings that were relevant in assisting with that policy?
Jayne Mallin:
— Time. It takes time to administratively close. What we found were people were
finished with the file. It was just those last minute administrative pieces
that weren’t being done. Ticking a box. Yes, we’ve uploaded the file closing.
It’s filed and finished. So it wasn’t that the staff were not doing the work;
it was just the administrative time. And so we’re trying to keep them on a
regular cadence so that it doesn’t get to the point where it’s overwhelming to
try to do file closing, you know, on a large scale.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you. That’s
all my questions, Mr. Chair.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions from committee
members? Again very important work and focus here. So thank you very much to
those that are all involved in the work that’s been discussed here today and
reflected in that status update and all those that are involved in the Ministry
of Justice and the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission in the work and service
they provide every day to the people of Saskatchewan.
I would welcome a motion at this time to
conclude consideration of the chapter with the Saskatchewan Legal Aid
Commission. Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s carried. And I’d invite
a brief final comment if Deputy Minister Kratzig or
any of the officials have one. Of course, thank you for your time this morning
and for your work and your leadership.
Kimberly Kratzig:
— I would just say thank you for the thoughtful questions, the great work from
the auditor for bringing these issues to our attention. It’s always helpful to
use these reports as a guide as we’re very committed to improving, you know,
everything that we’re involved in. So thank you, and thank you to the entire
committee.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you. We’re going to
recess now for a brief lunch and we’ll reconvene at 1 p.m. and turn our
attention to the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute. Thank you.
[The
committee recessed from 11:54 until 13:02.]
Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks, we’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Good afternoon. I’d like to welcome to
the table leadership from the Ministry of Agriculture — Deputy Minister Greuel
has joined us here this afternoon — as well as leadership from PAMI, the
Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute. Welcome to the Assembly.
Thanks as well for the status update
that you’ve sent our way. I’ll table it at this time. That’s PAC 72‑30,
Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute: Status update, dated January 20th,
2026.
I would turn it over to Deputy Minister
Greuel to briefly introduce the officials that have joined him here today.
Maybe refrain from getting into the chapter just at this time. We’ll go over to
the auditor and then come back your way for that.
Bill Greuel:
— Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to introduce with me today, I’ve got
Paul Buczkowski, president and CEO of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery
Institute; Ben Petruk behind us, the associate director of finance at PAMI. And
to my left is Rob Pentland, the executive director of corporate services of the
Ministry of Agriculture. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Well thank you. I’m going to turn it
over to the Provincial Auditor to make a presentation, and we’ll come back your
way.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
committee members, and officials. With me today is Mr. Jason Shaw, and he’s the
deputy provincial auditor that is responsible for the portfolio of work that
does include the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute. And again behind us
is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach, and she’s our liaison with the committee.
Today Jason’s going to present the one
chapter noted on the agenda. The chapter covers the results of the annual
integrated audit at PAMI, and there are no new recommendations for the
committee’s consideration in this chapter, as the committee did previously
agree with two recommendations.
I do want to thank the president and CEO
of PAMI and his staff for the co-operation that was extended to us during our
work.
With that I’ll turn it over to Jason.
Jason Shaw:
— Thank you. So this presentation provides our results of the annual integrated
audit of the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute for the year ended March
31st, 2024. The results are included in chapter 7 in our 2024 report volume 2
starting on page 41.
For the year ended March 31st, 2024 we
found PAMI had reliable financial statements and complied with relevant
legislative authorities. It had effective rules and procedures to safeguard
public resources except for one concern reported in the chapter about properly
reviewing financial information.
PAMI implemented one recommendation
previously made as it adequately prepared its financial statements for audit.
We saw evidence of senior management’s review of the initial set of financial
statements received for audit, and the audit did not identify any significant
errors.
However, we found PAMI management
neither consistently reviewed or approved financial reporting information nor
consistently documented approval. We continue to recommend PAMI require
management to conduct a detailed review of financial information prepared by
staff responsible for carrying out these duties. We found, for example, for the
44 journal entries we tested, we were unable to see evidence of review and
approval of journal entries before staff recorded them in the accounting
system, and three did not have supporting documentation.
Consistent review of financial
information can help identify issues and allow for corrective action in a
timely manner. During our 2025 audit, we found PAMI implemented this
recommendation and we reported this in our 2025 report volume 2, “Summary of
Implemented Recommendations” chapter, which is on the agenda at 3 p.m. today.
Overall we are satisfied both recommendations had been addressed by March 31st,
2025.
Thank you. That concludes my
presentation.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thanks again for the important
focus on this front and the follow-up here today. I’ll turn it over to Deputy
Minister Greuel and his officials to provide brief remarks. Thanks as well for
detailing some of those actions in the status update. And then we’ll open it up
for questions.
Bill Greuel:
— Good, thank you. I want to begin by thanking the Provincial Auditor for the
co-operation and the work with PAMI for the report that we’re here to discuss,
and that’s specifically chapter 7, “Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute,”
in the 2024 report volume 2.
As you’ve stated, this report had two
recommendations, the first being that “We recommended the Prairie Agricultural
Machinery Institute require a full review of the year-end financial statements
by management.” This was first reported in the 2021 report volume 2, chapter 9
and is reported as implemented in the 2024 report volume 2, chapter 7. PAMI
agrees with this assessment that the recommendation has been implemented.
The second recommendation is that “We
recommended the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute require management to
conduct a detailed review of financial information (e.g. financial reports,
journal entries, reconciliations, payroll registers) prepared by staff
responsible for carrying out these duties.” This was first reported in the 2021
volume 2, chapter 9 and is still reported as not implemented in the 2024 report
volume 2, chapter 7.
PAMI has implemented specific procedures
to ensure financial information is reviewed to fulfill
this recommendation. Those detailed procedures include ensuring journal
entries, payroll registers, and reconciliations are reviewed independently and
saved with accompanying support; balance sheet accounts are reconciled monthly;
contracts are signed by and dated by senior management; a record of signed
documents is retained based on corporate retention policy; timely reviews and
sign-offs of monthly financial reports; and ensuring segregation of duties
control is being met.
With the completion of the March 31,
2025 annual integrated audit for PAMI, this recommendation has now been
implemented. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Yeah, again great to see the actions
taken on this front. And I mean PAMI’s a remarkable place, so just a shout-out
to the entire team here too. I know it’s proudly housed there in Humboldt. But
just an incredible place of innovation and research and practical ideas that
have led to many, many improvements for producers across this province, for
agriculture and also mining as well, right? So anyways, thanks for that.
I’ll open it up now to committee members
for questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you and welcome. It looks like all the chapter recommendations have, you
know, been implemented. Just out of curiosity, are the PAMI financial
statements and audits reported publicly?
Paul
Buczkowski: —
Yes, for sure. Thank you for your question. Our financial statements as
presented and approved by the auditor, the Provincial Auditor, are released not
only within the legislation but also within PAMI’s website and our other means
of public knowledge. So anybody can go on our public website, see our annual
report, our approved annual report, and our financial statements, which are
presented there.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. What time of the year does PAMI have to complete those documents?
Paul
Buczkowski: — Generally
our final audit review — I might pass this over to Jason as well — but to make
it confirmed, we are generally done our audit in July. Then we present our
financial statements shortly thereafter after we go through board approval. And
once they are signed off by our board, the provincial auditors release their
report, and then we’re able to send it to the public.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you.
And just one last question. Will the ministry verify those steps are being
completed? If so, how is that kind of navigated through the ministry?
Paul
Buczkowski: — Yes. We
need to make sure that we follow all the steps as recommended by the auditor. I
know in years past we sometimes jumped the gun, but we make sure that we have
the approval before we send that out. And the biggest thing for us is
presenting to our board to make sure everything is accurate. But it’s an
ongoing process as far as the review from the auditor.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you,
and thank you for your work.
Paul
Buczkowski: — Thank you.
Chair Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Just was wondering what some of the
challenges were that you were encountering with respect to doing the full
review of your financial statements as well as ensuring to the timely review of
financial entries before entering them. What were some of those challenges you
encountered, and maybe a little bit of a window into how you effectively
resolved them?
Paul
Buczkowski: — For sure.
Thank you again for your question. I started at PAMI as the chief financial
officer so to speak, the director of finance in 2022. We had some significant
resources challenges prior to that where we were down to 14 people across both
of our locations. Unfortunately most of those people were
our finance team.
So when I came in we had a cleanup
procedure that we had. We had to use Deloitte as one of our helpers to get our
financial information back on track. But over the next six or seven months, we
made a change. And I was able to move into the role of president and CEO and
hire Ben, who we had mentioned who is sitting behind me. Ben has done an
amazing job. And we’re back up to 37 people and we have a full finance team.
So with all those things being said, you
know, the team has done an amazing job. To talk about the specifics about not
reviewing financial information timely, we have gone through some system
changes as well. We had a Microsoft product that was no longer supported by
Microsoft, and with Deloitte’s help, we moved to QuickBooks for the 2022‑23
year. Some of our reviews didn’t happen until 45 to 60 days after month end,
which is obviously an audit concern. But we were able to, with Ben’s help and
his team, move 100 per cent into Sage Intacct. And now we’re getting our
financial statements out timely and within reason, and after full review.
Hugh Gordon: — So you rely on
QuickBooks now?
Paul Buczkowski:
— No, we’re fully implemented into Sage.
Hugh Gordon: — Sage. Yes, fair
enough. Thank you. No more questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions? Okay, thanks.
Yeah, thanks again for the actions here. And you know, for those of you that
made your way down to Regina here to your legislature from Humboldt, thanks for
your leadership. Thanks for the work on these fronts. And you know,
Saskatchewan people, I think anyone should go to that website and just see that
story of PAMI and what the results have been over the years. I’ve had the
privilege of touring it in the past. It’s a real awesome place. So thanks for
what you’re leading there.
Not seeing any further questions,
there’s no new recommendations. So I’d welcome a motion to conclude
consideration of chapter 7 of the 2024 report volume 2. Moved by MLA Harrison.
All agreed? That’s carried.
All right. Any final remarks from Deputy
Minister Greuel or leadership of PAMI?
Bill Greuel:
— Yeah, just a thanks again to the co-operation from the Provincial Auditor on
this file. When I talked to the management of PAMI, it was a really great
process this year. And appreciate the assistance and the work of the Provincial
Auditor.
Chair Wotherspoon:
— Wonderful. Okay, folks, we’ll have a brief recess. And up next here, as soon
as they’re in their seats, is the Saskatchewan Research Council.
[The committee recessed for a period of
time.]
[13:15]
Saskatchewan Research Council
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks, we’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts and we’re going to turn our attention to
the Saskatchewan Research Council. Thanks to the leadership of SRC for joining us here today. I’d invite President and CEO
Crabtree to introduce the officials that are with him here today at this time,
and then I’ll turn it over to the auditor to focus in on some of the
considerations. Then we’ll come back your way at that point for more comment.
Mike Crabtree:
— Oh, they’ll turn it on.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — You bet.
Mike Crabtree:
— This is my personal nemesis, these microphones.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Yeah, no.
Mike Crabtree:
— Yes. So to my right is Ryan Hill. He is the chief operating officer of SRC. And to my left is Jocelyn, who is going to give the
presentation, and she is our CFO [chief financial officer].
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s wonderful. Thanks for joining
us here today. Thanks as well for the status update that you provided us. I’ll
present that now, or table it now: PAC 73‑30, Saskatchewan Research
Council: Status update, dated January 20th, 2026.
I’m going to turn it over to the
Provincial Auditor for their presentation.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
committee members, and officials. With me today is Mr. Jason Shaw, and he’s the
deputy provincial auditor that is responsible for the audits at SRC. And then again behind us is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach,
our liaison with this committee.
Jason’s going to present the chapter
noted on the agenda. This chapter doesn’t include any new recommendations, as
the committee has previously agreed to them. We are pleased to see that SRC has addressed all outstanding recommendations and
strengthened its processes around purchasing goods and services. And I do want
to thank senior management at SRC for the
co-operation as what was extended to us during our work. With that, I’ll turn
it over to Jason.
Jason
Shaw: —
Thank you. The Saskatchewan Research Council routinely purchases goods and
services relating to research, including development, design, and consultation.
It also procures other services, including those needed to remediate legacy
uranium mines in northern Saskatchewan.
Chapter 17 of our 2025 report volume 1,
starting on page 183, reports the progress made on the recommendations
initially made in our 2019 audit of SRC’s processes
to purchase goods and services. By December 2024 SRC
fully implemented the four outstanding recommendations.
In section 3.1, SRC
established and followed its process to communicate the results of tenders to
suppliers. We tested eight public tenders and found SRC
had appropriate approvals for all eight bids before appropriately communicating
the results to successful and unsuccessful bidders. Timely communicating with
successful and unsuccessful bidders reduces the risk of SRC
not demonstrating fairness and transparency of its purchasing decisions in a
timely manner.
In section 3.2, SRC
established and followed its guidance on timeframes to allow suppliers to
respond to tenders. We tested 10 public tenders and found all 10 bids were open
for two to four weeks, which was in accordance with SRC
guidance that is similar to good practice. Formal guidance on how much time to
give suppliers responding to purchasing competitions provides suppliers with
sufficient time to respond and helps SRC treat
suppliers fairly and equitably, as well as achieve best value.
In section 3.3, SRC
strengthened its processes to monitor purchasing card transaction limits when
it approved temporary limit increases and extensions, as well as readjusted
those limits afterwards. We tested seven temporarily increased transaction
limits and found SRC appropriately approved them
before adjusting the limits. We also found staff reduced five of these seven
temporarily increased transaction limits within one week. For the other two
transaction limits tested, we found it found reasonable to take longer to
readjust limits due to appropriate circumstances. Actively monitoring and
returning temporary increases to PCard [purchasing
card] transaction limits to prior-approved limits timely reduces the risk of
cardholders making inappropriate purchases or purchases not in accordance with SRC expectations.
In section 3.4, SRC
established and followed its policy to assess and track supplier performance.
We found SRC evaluated 16 suppliers in September 2024
based on suppliers SRC paid the most. We found SRC evaluated these suppliers based on requirements in its
policy. A consistent and formal process to assess and track the performance of
suppliers helps SRC to select qualified or
appropriate suppliers.
Thank you, and this concludes my
presentation.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you very much for the
follow-up on this front, the folks, the work. I’ll turn it over to SRC for their response, then we’ll open it up for
questions.
Jocelyn Allard:
— Perfect. Thank you. We are pleased to be here today to speak to the status of
the Provincial Auditor’s follow-up report performed in 2024 around SRC’s purchasing processes. As you know, the most recent
report is included in chapter 17 of the 2025 Provincial Auditor’s report volume
1.
It is important to note, as we’ve
already discussed, that the most recent report found that all four
recommendations from SRC’s procurement practices were
fully implemented at the time of the audit. These practices remain fully
implemented at today’s date with documented procedures, ongoing monitoring, and
established oversight practices.
The four recommendations in the report
focus on strengthening consistency, transparency, and accountability in
procurement at SRC. Two of the four recommendations
surrounded setting expectations on timelines within the procurement process.
The first recommendation surrounded setting timelines for active tenders on the
market, and the second recommendation was to set timelines on communicating
procurement decisions with vendors. In both of these instances, SRC has documented and continues to follow our internal
standard operating procedures which outline these timelines. This ensures
consistency across tenders and timely, transparent communication with our
vendors.
Another recommendation surrounded the
monitoring of purchase card, or PCard, transaction
limits and extensions for limits for special circumstances. As noted in the
latest report, SRC continues to monitor the PCard limits and ensure they are reduced in a timely manner
to ensure they remain appropriate.
The final of the four recommendations
surrounds establishing a formal supplier performance monitoring process. As
part of this action, SRC developed and maintains
organization-wide surveys where we gather feedback from our project leaders. We
also maintain records related to supplier non-conformance or poor performance.
This information supports continuous improvement and helps inform future
purchasing decisions at SRC.
As noted, SRC
has embedded the Provincial Auditor’s recommendations into formal policies and
standard operating procedures to ensure they are consistently applied over
time. As of today there are no outstanding actions related to the latest
report. SRC remains committed to maintaining strong
procurement controls and continuous improvement practices.
We are happy to respond to questions
from the committee.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. Thank you so much for the
remarks. Thanks to all those that have been involved in the work on this front.
And I’ll open it up now to committee members that may have questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you and welcome. How long has the Saskatchewan Research Council been
around?
Mike Crabtree:
— Saskatchewan Research Council was inaugurated in 1947, so this is our 76th
year of operations.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. I did not know.
Mike Crabtree:
— And sometimes it feels like we’ve been here that entire period, yes.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thanks. And I know you mentioned that these are all implemented, but my
question is, will SRC verify that these will be
monitored ongoing? Is that what you meant? Did I understand that?
Jocelyn Allard:
— Correct. These are part of our standard operating procedures. So annually,
for example, we perform and continue to perform our feedback surveys and go
through the same regular monitoring processes as well, because the operating
procedures document our timelines. We follow those for each procurement going
forward.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay. Thank you. So SRC has been around for a bit.
Purchasing card policies are usually standard in most businesses. What
precipitated it not having these processes in place prior to the audit?
Jocelyn Allard:
— These processes were in place. It’s that the regular feedback and monitoring
throughout was not consistent. So typically what happens is when a purchase
card limit has been extended, we ask the employee to return so that we can
reduce the limit back to its normal state. And we weren’t necessarily going
through a regular process on a quarterly or monthly basis to ensure they had
been appropriately reduced on time. So now we are going through that process
where we provide reports and review those reports to ensure that the limits
have been decreased back to the regular amount.
Joan Pratchler: —
And that’s ongoing, correct?
Jocelyn Allard:
— Yes. That happens still.
Joan Pratchler: —
Let me see. SRC has recommended . . . Who
is exempt from those limits, and why? Or why would some have higher limits?
Jocelyn Allard:
— Right. So we do have a few individuals where we have designated their
purchase card limits to be higher than the norm because they have frequent
higher purchase activity — people such as our stores personnel, who are
purchasing regular supplies day to day, or people in our accounts payable,
where we are processing regular invoices on a monthly basis that are higher
than their $5,000 transaction limit.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay. Thank you.
Mike Crabtree:
— I’ll just say in addition to that, that all transaction limits and changes to
transaction limits are recommended to me, and I have to sign them off before
they become effective.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay, good. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Maybe attached to
that, is any thought given to maybe automating that process?
Jocelyn Allard:
— In terms of the authorization?
Hugh Gordon: — Yeah, I guess it
would be an electronic or a digital authorization period. You’d say from day
this to day that, this is the limit. Then after that . . .
Jocelyn Allard:
— We would love to incorporate that if we could. Unfortunately our banking
system does not allow for that because it’s an external system. But we do
typically monitor that, and if we can reduce the limit the next day, we do.
It’s just a matter of timing of processing transactions on the vendor side.
Hugh Gordon: — I just had a
couple of questions here with respect to the evaluation of I guess bidders,
contractors. I just was wondering how your evaluation process as you brought it
in . . . I don’t know if you have enough time or experience with it
yet, but I’m just wondering if you could enlighten the committee as to how that
has impacted the quality of the tenders that you have been receiving.
Jocelyn Allard:
— Yeah, absolutely. So I assume you’re talking about the survey process that we
spoke about.
Hugh Gordon: — Yeah. Like you do
your evaluation on their performance, whether they met certain criteria, if
they complied, etc.
Jocelyn Allard:
— Correct. Yeah. So we do gather feedback in a number of ways. The one is the
feedback survey. So what we do is send a short-form survey on an annual basis
to our project leaders based on the dollar spend. So we’ll look at the
highest-dollar vendors in the year and send out the survey to the project
leaders who worked directly with those vendors. And we evaluate things such as
their performance, their safety metrics, things that are of concern to SRC as well as that best value, right — the money for
dollars spent.
We gather that feedback and then what
happens is, as we’re going through future procurements, we can use that to
evaluate and consider if those vendors may be of best value or a lower value
based on things like where we’ve had safety concerns. So we go through that
process every year, document that.
Hugh Gordon: — Have you had any
suppliers that received a poor performance score? And if so, how did you manage
or deal with that situation?
Jocelyn Allard:
— We have had issues of non-conformance where we have documented. We haven’t
necessarily had as many vendors come back with poor scores. In those instances
we have issued non-conformance letters to them directly, or in some instances
where there is a major safety concern, we have actually asked them to exit our
site and not return until that safety issue has been resolved.
Hugh Gordon: — Okay. Thank you.
[13:30]
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions for SRC here today with the focus on these chapters? Not seeing
any. These aren’t new recommendations. We’ve seen, had laid out the
implementation that’s occurred. Thanks for that.
So I’d welcome a motion to conclude
consideration of the 2025 report volume 1, chapter 17. Moved by MLA Patterson.
All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s carried. Okay. Thank you very
much. Thanks to SRC for all your leadership and work
in the province. Any final words to us before we kick you out of here?
Mike Crabtree:
— No. Thank you very much.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, great. Thank you very much.
We’ll have a real brief recess until the Ministry of Highways takes the seats.
[The
committee recessed for a period of time.]
Highways
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay folks, we’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts. And we’re going to turn our attention to
the Ministry of Highways and the chapter from the auditor that’s focused on
highways here, chapter 5. We have a couple new recommendations that are there.
I’d like to welcome Deputy Minister Toffan and officials that have joined us here today. Deputy
Minister, you can briefly introduce the officials that are with you here today.
You can refrain from getting into the chapter considerations because we’ll do
that after I come over to the auditor for presentation.
Kyle Toffan: —
Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right we have Tom Lees, he’s assistant deputy
minister; Chris Ference to my left, executive director; and Bryan Peacock
behind me, director, all in the policy, planning, and corporate services
division.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you all for joining us here
today. I’m going to at this point table the status update that you provided us
as well. It’s PAC 74‑30, Ministry of Highways status update dated January
20th, 2026. And I’m going to turn it over to the Provincial Auditor to make
their presentation.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
committee members, and officials. With me today is Mr. Jason Shaw, and he’s the
deputy provincial auditor that is responsible for the portfolio work that
includes the Ministry of Highways. And behind us is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach.
She’s our liaison with this committee.
Today Jason will present the one chapter
noted on the agenda. The chapter summarizes our 2024 annual integrated audit at
the Ministry of Highways and does include two new recommendations for the committee’s
consideration. I do want to thank the deputy minister and his staff for the
co-operation that was extended to us during our work.
With that I’ll turn it over to Jason.
Jason Shaw: — Thank you. This
presentation provides our audit results of the annual integrated audit of the
Ministry of Highways for the year ending March 31st, 2024. The results are
included in chapter 5 in our 2024 report volume 2, starting on page 33. For
2023‑24 the Ministry of Highways complied with financial-related
authorities. The ministry had effective rules and procedures to safeguard
public resources other than the two recommendations we made in this chapter.
On page 36 we recommended the Ministry
of Highways prepare and review revenue reconciliations in accordance with its
policy. The ministry brings in about $25 million in revenue annually,
mainly from the federal government for sharing infrastructure costs. The
ministry’s revenue reconciliation policy requires staff to complete monthly
revenue reconciliations within 31 days of month end and for other staff to
independently review the reconciliation within seven days after preparation.
We found ministry staff did not perform
sufficient, timely reviews of monthly cash receipt and accounts receivable
reconciliations, including reviewing relevant supporting documentation. Not
having a timely, detailed review of revenue reconciliations increases the risk
of inaccurate financial records and reports provided to senior management, and
may allow misappropriated funds to go undetected.
Also on page 36, we recommended the
Ministry of Highways management conduct a detailed review of the Transportation
Partnerships Fund’s year-end financial statements. Ministry management did not
conduct a detailed review of the Transportation Partnerships Fund’s financial
statements for the year ended March 31st, 2024. As a result, the financial
statements presented for audit contained numerous errors. The ministry adjusted
the fund’s financial statements to correct these errors.
Not sufficiently reviewing the fund’s
financial statements and supporting materials increases the risk of the
financial statements containing errors and inaccuracies and may not align with
Canadian public sector accounting standards.
During our 2024‑25 audit, we found
the ministry implemented both of these recommendations, and we reported this in
our 2025 report volume 2, summary of implemented recommendations chapter, which
is on the agenda for 3 p.m. today. And thank you, and this concludes my presentation.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you very much for the
focus of the work. Thanks again for the status update that details some of the
actions that have been taken to implement these recommendations. I’ll turn it
over to DM [Deputy Minister] Toffan and his officials
to provide brief response to the chapter, and we’ll see if there’s some
questions.
Kyle Toffan:
— Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ll keep my remarks quite brief. I’m here to
provide some information and answer questions about the auditor’s 2024 report
volume 2, related to the Ministry of Highways.
As validated by the Provincial Auditor
in chapter 5 of that report, the Ministry of Highways had mostly effective
rules and procedures to safeguard public resources. Also it was determined that
the financial statements of the Transportation Partnerships Fund — we call it
the TPF — are reliable. That being said, the Provincial Auditor pointed out two
instances where the Ministry of Highways needed to be better.
The auditor found that the ministry did
not perform sufficient timely reviews of monthly cash receipts and accounts
receivable reconciliations. And the ministry did not conduct a detailed review
of the Transportation Partnerships Fund’s financial statement, which contained
numerous errors.
The auditor provided a series of
recommendations that the ministry prepare and review revenue reconciliations in
accordance with its own policy, as was mentioned, and that the ministry conduct
a detailed review of TPF’s year-end financial statements. The auditor’s review
has allowed the ministry to tighten its procedures and provide better value to
Saskatchewan citizens.
And since the auditor’s report, the
ministry has addressed staffing vacancies in the financial services unit which
contributed to some of those issues that were discussed with revenue
reconciliations. The work unit is now fully staffed following significant
personnel changes, and new staff have been trained and are aware of their
responsibilities in performing and providing timely reviews. We are reporting
the recommendation as implemented, that first recommendation.
I’ll now address the second
recommendation relating to the TPF financial statement review. Responsibility
for the preparation and review of the TPF’s financial statements was transferred
to a more senior manager following this recommendation, and this manager had
previous experience related to preparing those financial statements, so it was
a much better fit. This approach allows us to report the recommendation is
implemented.
Of course we would always prefer the
auditor find no issues with the ministry in reviewing our financials, but we
are responsive as an organization and we strive for continuous improvement and
we took action quickly. The recommendations from the auditor gave us the
opportunity to listen to feedback, look at our processes, and get better. And
I’m happy to answer any questions that you may have about these recommendations
and our response.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, yeah. Thank you for that. And
I’ll open it up now to committee members that may have questions. MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Good day. Welcome
here. Thank you for attending the committee. Always appreciated. Let’s just
start off with these reviews of . . . I guess of financial
transactions. Could you give us some of the rationale or reasons as to why the
ministry wasn’t performing either sufficient or timely reviews of things like
monthly cash receipts, accounts receivable reconciliations, supporting
documentations, etc., as mentioned on page 35 of her report?
Kyle Toffan:
— Yeah, so this really does relate to some personnel issues. We did have an
individual that was in the ministry for decades prior to this. I think it was
around 48 years or something, like it was a long time. This person transitioned
over to a fairly junior resource over a three-week period as the individual
retired, and frankly we needed to do a better job of that transition. And that
individual probably didn’t have the appropriate training to do the reviews.
Since that time we recognized that there were some gaps and that’s led to
improvements, including moving this over to a more senior resource.
Hugh Gordon: — And as a follow-up
with respect to that then, so the new staff that came in, were they provided
further training, enhancements to training and such in order to be better
prepared to do that part of that job?
Tom Lees:
— Good afternoon. Tom Lees, the ADM [assistant deputy minister] of our policy,
planning, and corporate services division. So in response to your question
there, yes, the individual received some additional training, although we ended
up moving that specific task over to a more senior individual who has the
proficiency to do that task.
Hugh Gordon: — So it was a bit of
both.
Tom Lees:
— A bit of both.
Hugh Gordon: — If I understand
that correctly. Fair enough. I was wondering if you could just explain for the
benefit of the committee how the Transportation Partnerships Fund works and
what that money that it collects goes toward.
Kyle Toffan:
— Yeah, for sure. The purpose of the Transportation Partnerships Fund is to
generate revenues from transportation partnership agreements, which
transportation companies pay into the fund for a portion of costs for things
like overweight hauling, over-dimensional loads, those types of things. And the
fund then uses those revenues to fund highway improvement projects. Most of
them are relatively small improvement projects, not like our capital budget
would be for. And so I mean just generally speaking, that’s what we’re kind of
dealing with.
The fund had a balance of
17.88 million in March 2025, and there’s a portion of that that’s
restricted for certain purposes and a portion of that that’s unrestricted. And
yeah, so that’s just a general overview.
Hugh Gordon: — So those are
monies that are, I presume like, charged to transportation companies if they’re
found to have an overweight load, for example. Do I understand that correctly?
A fine essentially.
Tom Lees:
— Sir, can you repeat that?
Hugh Gordon: — So I’m just
curious. Like so is this . . . It’s a mandatory amount that they pay
into the fund, or is it a fee collected from them when they’re found to have an
overweight load, for example? If you could explain how that collection process
works.
Tom Lees:
— Yeah, absolutely. So it’s not a fee once they’ve been deemed to have an
overweight load. It’s actually companies who are looking to haul higher weights
on our road network. And so we will assess the road routes that they’re taking,
ensure that they can hold that capacity, and then they are charged like a road
user fee essentially. And that fund goes into TPF for future work on our
infrastructure.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you very
much. I just was wondering if there was any impact from I guess the failure to
properly conduct the detailed review of the transportation partner fund’s
year-end financial statements. I just was wondering if . . . Because
we have some discrepancies into . . . Pardon me. We have some
discrepancies of accounts payable. Sometimes they’re overstated; sometimes
they’re understated.
Was there ever an issue or concern with
the Transportation Partnerships Fund’s ability to provide services? Was there
any issue with funding for that at any moment? Or is this just a matter of
properly managing that fund’s account balance?
[13:45]
Tom Lees:
— Yeah. So essentially to your question, no, it didn’t impact our ability to
deliver on services. It was really just matching revenue and expenses to the
appropriate period.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you for
that. It’s just the concern initially was that, you know, money’s supposed to
go into the fund. The fund . . . Somewhere the department relies on
the fund for certain amounts to do a certain amount of infrastructure work. And
if that was understated at some point in time, that would leave potentially
less money to do that work. And I’m glad you cleared that up. That wasn’t an
issue.
I
guess the other question I had was with respect to some of these errors. And I
know the Attorney General did the review of sample size transactions and
things, but I’m just wondering if you could tell us, you know, how long did it
take essentially to discover these errors? Was it something else that you
discovered on your own? And was it something that came to light at other times,
or was it only during the auditor general’s review that these things came to
light?
Kyle Toffan:
— I’m just waiting for the red . . . Oh, there’s the red light. Yeah,
so this came up through the Provincial Auditor’s work, these discrepancies. And
when we found them, we worked with them to update the material and make it
correct.
Hugh Gordon: — Okay. I’m good,
Chair.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions for Highways
here today, folks? Not seeing any, thanks again for the time here today. I
would welcome a motion that we concur and note compliance with the two
recommendations before us, the new recommendations. Moved by MLA Chan. All
agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay. That’s carried. Deputy
Minister Toffan, your officials, thanks for your time
here today and all those in the ministry for their work. Do you have any final
remarks you’d like to offer us before we turn our attention to the next entity?
Kyle Toffan:
— My only remark is just the Provincial Auditor’s office — I’ll echo what was
already said — it’s just a pleasure to work with them. And we always have
opportunities to improve our business, so thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, that’s great. Thank you very
much. A very brief recess while we bring before us the Saskatchewan
Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission.
[The committee recessed for a period of
time.]
Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade
Certification Commission
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks, we’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts. And we’re going to turn our attention to
the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission. Thank you,
CEO Ritter, for joining us here today along with your team of officials. I’d
invite you to briefly introduce who’s with you here today. You don’t need to
get into the chapter and stuff because we’ll go over to the auditor and come
back your way for that.
Jeff Ritter:
— All right, thank you. Here with me today are Dave Peters, our chief operating
officer; Shaun Augustin, our chief financial officer; and Chelsea Coupal, our
director of communications and marketing.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thank you all for joining us
here today. And I know we have some new recommendations to consider with a new
chapter. I’ll table the status update that you provided to us here at this
time. That’s PAC 75‑30, Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade
Certification Commission: Status update, dated January 20th, 2026.
And I’ll turn it over to the Provincial
Auditor to make a presentation.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
committee members, and officials. With me today is Ms. Jennifer Robertson, and
she was the engagement lead on the audit at the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and
Trade Certification Commission. And again behind us is Ms. Michelle Lindenbach.
She’s our liaison with this committee.
Today we’re going to make a presentation
related to our performance audit around increasing apprentices from
under-represented groups. This chapter includes seven new recommendations for
the committee’s consideration. Before we do begin our presentation, I do want
to thank the commission’s management and staff for the co-operation that was
extended to us during our work.
The Apprenticeship and Trade
Certification Act, 2019 makes the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship
and Trade Certification Commission responsible for developing approaches to
apprenticeship training and certification that supports increased access,
participation, and completion by members of under-represented groups. Of the
commission’s 76 employees, 14 staff work directly to promote apprenticeship and
to support apprentices from under-represented groups in the skilled trades.
Chapter 15 of the 2023 report volume 2
outlines the results of our audit of the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade
Certification Commission’s processes to increase apprentices from
under-represented groups in skilled trades. Under-represented groups include
Indigenous persons, visible minorities, people with disabilities, and females.
We concluded, for the 12‑month period ended June 30th, 2023, the
commission had, except in the areas of our seven recommendations, effective
processes to increase apprentices from under-represented groups in skilled
trades.
In recommendation no. 1, on page
141, we recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification
Commission pursue visible minority representation on its board of directors.
The commission engages with key stakeholders through its industry-led board,
which can include up to 20 members. The majority of the board members must be
from industry, equally representing employers and employees.
In 2022‑23 the commission’s board
had six employer representatives and six employee representatives. We found the
composition of the commission’s board consistent with the Act; however we found
that the board did not include visible minority representation. While not
required by legislation, it is good practice to appoint a member from each
under-represented group. Without explicit representation from visible
minorities, the commission may be unaware of unique barriers visible minorities
face with apprenticeship.
In recommendation no. 2, on page
142, we recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification
Commission sufficiently engage with apprentices from under-represented groups
to identify barriers and develop sufficient actions to address them.
Its 2022‑27 strategic plan
outlined key groups to engage with, which included employers, employees,
apprentices, educational partners, journeypersons, and tradespeople. In the
development of the plan we found the commission’s board engaged most key
groups, such as trade boards and industry associations, to identify barriers
under-represented groups face and potential actions to address them.
We found that, while it identified
apprentices as a key group, the commission did not seek sufficient input from
this group. The commission appropriately surveyed apprentices every two years
to collect information about their apprenticeship experience. For example,
satisfaction with on-the-job training support from the commission. But its
survey questions need improvement. We found that the survey did not offer the
opportunity from apprentices to expand on their responses and provide insights
into barriers faced.
Gathering information from apprentices
about potential barriers, including from apprentices from under-represented
groups, can assist the commission in creating effective actions to attract and
improve the apprenticeship experience for these groups.
In
recommendation 3, on page 144, we recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and
Trade Certification Commission establish appropriate actions to address all key
identified barriers faced by under-represented groups. The commission
identified 16 key barriers faced by under-represented groups and actions taken
to address 13 of these.
The
commission did not have an action plan or initiative to address the following
three known barriers: female apprentices experiencing greater child care
responsibilities, apprentices experiencing sexual discrimination or harassment
in the workplace, and lack of understanding of the Black Canadian experience in
the skilled trades.
Taking
steps to address known barriers can lead to increased access, participation,
and completion of apprenticeship by members of under-represented groups.
In
recommendation 4, on page 145, we recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and
Trade Certification Commission enhance and implement its innovation and
inclusion strategy to increase under-represented groups in the skilled trades.
The commission’s innovation and inclusion strategy is a five-year strategy
finalized in August 2022 that aimed to increase, measure, and evaluate
participation of under-represented groups in the skilled trades.
The
commission should significantly improve the strategy by formally assigning
expectations of responsibilities to externally interested parties like
employers or training partners for increasing apprentices from
under-represented groups, revising language in the strategy to be consistent
with good practice, and incorporating both employers and youth as stakeholders
in the strategy to increase engagement.
An
innovation and inclusion strategy that includes all key interested parties,
clear expectations, and language consistent with good practice can help the
commission to achieve the desired outcomes of increasing under-represented
groups in the skilled trades.
We found the commission identified
relevant performance measures for under-represented groups consistent with
those identified by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission and established
associated targets. While we found most of these targets reasonable, the
commission’s targets for apprentices self-identifying as female is low at 11
per cent and remained unchanged for the past five years. While 11 per cent of
the apprentices identifying as female is consistent with other provinces,
setting a higher target would demonstrate a provincial commitment to greater
representation of women in the skilled trades.
[14:00]
In order to meet the upcoming skilled
trade demand, the commission needs to focus its efforts on attracting people
from severely under-represented groups, such as women. Given that 49.8 per cent
of the current Saskatchewan working population is female, this is a worthwhile
demographic to draw upon for these missing resources.
In recommendation 6, on page 149, we
recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission
expand its performance measures and targets for under-represented groups to
include all key milestones — for example, entry, duration, completion — in the
apprenticeship program.
We
noted the commission appropriately conducted research around under-represented
groups progressing through the program. The research analyzed progression of
apprentices by various levels of completion — year 1, 2, 3.
The
commission should research to expand its performance measures and targets for
under-represented groups in the apprenticeship program. For example, it could
consider setting targets and analyzing results for
under-represented groups as follows: the percentage of under-represented
apprentices who successfully complete the year of apprenticeship, the number of
certificates of apprenticeship completions issued, the number of exam
completions, and the number of years for each of the under-represented groups to
complete their program.
There’s
a risk the commission doesn’t know where under-represented groups’ apprentices
are experiencing difficulty. For example, when we looked at the five-year
trends, female representation in new registrations and active apprenticeship
was increasing, but completion rates were decreasing. Tracking various stages
will help determine where to best focus resources.
And in the final recommendation, number
7 on page 150, we recommend the Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade
Certification Commission formalize its analysis of reasons for not meeting
established targets for under-represented groups, and planned actions to
address.
The commission provides monthly reports
showing results compared to targets for key measures to senior management and
the board. These measures include the number of apprenticeship registrations
for members of under-represented groups. While the reports include actual
results compared to established targets, they don’t include documented
explanations for why the commission had not met the targets or identify
specific actions to address results.
Additionally, the commission reports the
actual results versus established targets annually to the public in its annual
report, but this report didn’t include a rationale for why it didn’t meet
apprenticeship targets. Documenting reasons for not meeting targets and actions
taken to address can help the commission better measure progress in addressing
root causes and achieving results.
I will now pause for the committee’s
consideration.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much, Auditor, for
the focus on this front, the new recommendations that are brought to us. I’ll
turn it over to CEO Ritter for a brief response — thanks as well for the
fulsome report and the status update — and then we’ll open it up for questions.
Jeff Ritter: — All right. Thank
you so much. I’ll start by saying that we welcome the Provincial Auditor’s
feedback and recommendations on efforts to diversify the apprenticeship
workforce in Saskatchewan. Two of our organization’s values are equity and
diversity, and we take those values seriously. Now while the commission does
not believe that we can single-handedly change the demographics of the
apprenticeship system, we believe that we can influence it. Of course
increasing diversity within the skilled trades apprenticeships is a huge
undertaking, one that requires a great deal of societal change at multiple
levels.
The Provincial Auditor has provided us
with seven recommendations in their performance audit on increasing apprentices
from under-represented groups, which appeared in the 2023 report volume 2. We
believe that we have made good progress and have implemented most of them. We
have not yet implemented one of the recommendations and have only partially
implemented another, and I’ll touch on those two in my remarks.
The Provincial Auditor’s fourth
recommendation is to enhance and implement our innovation and inclusion
strategy. And while we’ve included goals related to under-represented groups in
our five-year strategic plan and our annual business plans and in the annual
work plans of staff members, we’ve not yet updated the innovation and inclusion
strategy.
Our plan in fact is to draft an entirely
new innovation and inclusion strategy and to move away from the original one
which was drafted at the time that we set up the innovation and inclusion
branch. Our fiscal year runs from July 1st until June 30th, so we’re aiming to
draft a new innovation and inclusion strategy over the summer of 2026, one that
incorporates all of the activities and programs that are currently taking place
at the commission to increase the participation of under-represented groups in
the apprenticeship system.
The Provincial Auditor’s sixth
recommendation is to expand performance measures and targets for under-represented
groups. While we can currently extract progression and completion rates for
apprentices from under-represented groups from existing data dashboards using
the Microsoft Power BI tool, we’ve not yet set any targets for these
milestones. We’d also like to explore setting up a separate dashboard
specifically for apprentices from under-represented groups.
That’s it for me. Again, we appreciate
the recommendations from the Provincial Auditor, and I’ll do my best to answer
any questions that you may have. Thank you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you. Thank you for that. Thank
you for the response. Thank you to those involved in this work. We’ll open it
up now to committee members that may have questions. MLA Pratchler.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. Welcome. Does your organization have any collaboration or
connections with the Ministry of Education or Ministry of Advanced Education?
Jeff Ritter:
— Yes. Yes, we do. In fact we have representation on our board of directors
from the Ministry of Education and participation from an observer from the
Ministry of Advanced Education. From an operational-level perspective, staff do
interact with colleagues across both of those ministries on a regular basis,
most typically in the delivery of the Saskatchewan Youth Apprenticeship
program, which is something that operates in a number of high schools
throughout the province.
Joan Pratchler: —
Connections with Sask Poly?
Jeff Ritter:
— Connections with Saskatchewan Polytechnic. They are our largest training
provider, probably providing technical training for north of 80 per cent of
apprentices that we currently have within the system.
Joan Pratchler: — Thank you. I
noticed on page 135, in 2023 there was identification of a need for 8,000 — and
5,000 new journeypersons — so a significant amount would be required by 2026.
Of course that was done, you know, several years ago. Are those numbers still
the case or have they changed over time, the prediction of what we need for
2026?
Jeff Ritter:
— I’ll maybe start and then I’ll turn it over to my CFO, Shaun Augustin. We are
in fact seeing demand for skilled tradespeople increase significantly beyond
what we had forecast. I think even for the current year we had forecast, I
think it was 7,800 apprentices to be registered in the system. We’ve already
accomplished that target six months into the year, so growth is significant and
increasing rapidly. And I’ll let Shaun add some perspective to those numbers.
Shaun Augustin:
— So we work with some national bodies around forecasting of apprenticeship
numbers. We do . . . Most of our work is done with administrative
data internally, but we do look at national forecasts. And everything it is
saying for Saskatchewan is that demand is on the uprise, and you know, we’re
already experiencing it fully. From the trough of about two years ago, we’ve
already had an increase of about 30 per cent in total registrations. And we’re
expecting, given where we’re at this year, that it probably is going to be sort
of 35, 40 per cent above that trough by the end of this fiscal year — our
fiscal year, I should be clear.
And really the drivers of it are sort of
twofold. One is economic growth, the economic activity in the province. And you
know, sort of all the tariffs and the things that you think might be impacting
us or could impact us, we’ve not experienced it so far.
The other part of it is that, you know,
it’s a demographic sort of thing, right. There’s a large swath of the skilled
trades that are older and they’re at the cusp of retirement. And so retirements
are actually probably the bigger generator of demand for apprentices and
journeypeople over the next 5 to 10 years. It’s particularly acute in the
forecast that we’ve seen within the next five, and then in the early 2030s
it’ll ease off.
But again, we’re getting access to
information where that will be updated annually and we’ll get to see what that
trend looks like over time.
Joan Pratchler: —
Can you tell me more about the creation of that barrier survey?
Jeff Ritter:
— So the SATCC [Saskatchewan Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission]
issues a survey every two years to both employers and apprentices. What we’ve
done this year is we’ve included questions that allow those respondents to
include . . . They already identify where they might be an
under-represented group member. We’ve included questions that allow them to
also identify barriers that they may be experiencing.
Joan Pratchler: —
And I noticed, you know, there was reasons why they . . . what could
be barriers. And then that last question was “other,” but no place to add more
to it. And if I’m reading between the lines, especially when it comes to
under-represented numbers or women being under-represented, that child care
might be part of the issue, and I looked at what some of the implementation
explanations were.
It seems like child care might be part
of that, which brings you back to that original question, the connection with
the Ministry of Education, because that’s where child care falls under. What
kind of collaborations might there be since this was even written to sort of
address, you know, that challenge?
Jeff Ritter:
— Yeah, specifically on child care, I think there’s been limited work on that.
I can update you on the results of the 2025 apprentice and employer
satisfaction survey where we did ask a question specifically about barriers.
Key supports needed for Red Seal
apprentices that were identified include financial support at 29 per cent;
academic and exam supports at 22 per cent; the program structure and
administration was identified as a barrier for 16 per cent; training access and
availability was identified at 12 per cent; challenges related to equity,
inclusion, or respect at 9 per cent; workplace and on-the-job experience at 7
per cent; along with child care and family considerations at 7 per cent; and
social and peer support at 7 per cent.
And then there were a number of other
smaller numbers that identified “no other additional supports needed” or
“other.” But those were the primary barriers that were identified in the
survey.
Joan Pratchler: —
And so who took that survey, all the apprentices or just the women?
Shaun Augustin:
— So I can answer that question. We sent out the apprentice satisfaction survey
to every registered apprentice in the system. It’s voluntary for them to
respond. We get a response rate in the sort of 15 per cent range, 20 per cent.
That’s not atypical, right? But we have a fairly significant sample size. Like
it’s in the thousand . . . like low thousands, right? So it’s
statistically significant responses.
Joan Pratchler: —
And I guess just to continue following up with that, when we know that women
make up half the population, that’s a big group to really look and drill deep
into; especially the under-represented, to drill deep. Is that part of your
upcoming sort of research to try and help figure out what we can do to build
those numbers up a bit?
Jeff Ritter:
— Yeah. One of the programmatic responses that we have currently in place is a
women in trades initiative that is offering a number of supports. Firstly it
has allowed us to hire female mentors in certain Red Seal trades, that are
going out and working directly with female apprentices across all of the Red
Seal trades that exist.
[14:15]
Those individuals are gathering
first-hand information from the apprentices on the challenges that they may be
experiencing. We’ve received some anecdotal feedback but have not yet seen a
comprehensive report on the results of their mentorship.
One of the other big parts of that
program is increased marketing efforts designed to encourage more participation
within the skilled trades, actively showcasing women apprentices finding
success within that space. And one of the initiatives taken to help reduce
financial barriers is funding support to waive the registration fees for female
apprentices in certain Red Seal trades and also to provide for free level 1
technical training tuition.
Joan Pratchler: —
Can you tell the committee a little bit more about that new inclusion plan? I
know it hasn’t started yet, but what do you envision or what are you kind of
seeing how that might go?
Jeff Ritter:
— I might turn that over specifically to my chief operating officer, Dave
Peters. He’s responsible for that area, and I’ll let him answer that question.
Thank you.
Dave Peters:
— So I think some of the programs that we’ve run for quite some time would be
included in that. We have an Indigenous apprenticeship initiative that we’ve
run quite a number of years, so that will continue on. We have just done a
review of that program. And there’s some subtle changes to it, but it’s
intended to try to introduce the skilled trades to Indigenous peoples and try
to get their participation. We’re trying to subtly change the direction of it
into more, I’d say, helping them complete the program, helping them stay in
apprenticeship and get them through to completion but while continuing to
introduce the trades to Indigenous folks.
In terms of the female apprentices,
again we’re nearing the end — probably the last six months, I believe — of the
women in skilled trades initiative. There’s information there that the female
mentors, for example, will provide us a summary of what have they found out
over the last several years doing this, and develop a strategy there.
Part of it will be informing employers,
for example, of some of the stories — I’ll call it that — that we’ve heard in
talking to female apprentices. You know, some of them are best practices. Some
of them are, you know, horrible practices. But we’d like awareness through our
employers that are hiring women that, you know, it’s not always a good
environment, and that welcoming for our female apprentices. So we plan to
develop a strategy based on that in terms of employers.
We have a learning services unit that
works with people with learning disabilities specifically, to try
. . . We spend a fair amount of time. We have two learning
strategists and an educational psychologist that does learning assessments, in
addition to 13 consultants that work in the field and meet one-on-one with
apprentices.
There’s a strategy, an apprentice
success enhancement strategy. I had to think of what ASES stood for. And that
strategy is designed to try to, on three pillars, earlier intervention
. . . So let’s try to find those struggling apprentices sooner and
customize their learning plans a little bit. We want to use more tutors and
individualized plans. And then a training provider and training oversight to
try to help them.
And that’s all designed to get those
folks through to certification and through the program. And we’re seeing, you
know, an increasing need for those learning services. So that will be a big
part of what we’re doing as part of our innovation and inclusion strategy.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay. Thank you. For how many years has the female apprenticeship target been
at 11 per cent?
Jeff Ritter: — We can’t provide
you with a precise answer. It’s been at that target up until recently for a
long period of time. Somewhat more recently . . . When did that
change, Shaun?
Shaun Augustin: — It began last year.
Jeff Ritter: — Last year. The
conversation that we had with our board of directors, partially as a result of
the Provincial Auditor’s recommendation, led for us to develop stretch targets
across all of the equity groups. Happy to say that we have, you know, as we’ve
increased numerically with the number of apprentices registered in the system
quite significantly, we’ve also seen large increases in registration across
equity groups.
The challenge is the math hasn’t
increased the percentage share of the total. So they’ve held constant at those
numbers, but I couldn’t characterize it as anything other than a positive story
where we have seen significant increase in participation across all of those
equity groups.
Shaun may be able to provide a little
more detail on those numbers that we’re seeing.
Shaun Augustin:
— Sure. So in the first six months of our fiscal year, so up until December
31st, we’ve seen a nearly 13 per cent increase, 12.8 per cent increase in
Indigenous registrations; female apprentices increased by 23.3 per cent; female
apprentices in trades with a low female representation has increased by 23,
almost 24 per cent year over year; apprentices with visible minorities
increased 24 per cent as well; and apprentices with disabilities increased by
18.2 per cent.
Unfortunately, like I was suggesting
earlier, we’ve increased our total registrations significantly. So our share of
Indigenous as an example has crept slightly backwards to 16.8 per cent. Female
apprentices did increase to 10.4 per cent, but that’s still below our target of
12 per cent. In female apprentices with low representation, again it’s up a bit
to 7.3 per cent, but still well below the 10 per cent target. Visible
minorities, closer to the target but still a little ways away; it’s 8.9 per
cent compared to the 10 per cent target. And for apprentices with disabilities
we’re a little bit closer; we’re at 11.7 per cent share and the target was 13
per cent. So you know, to Jeff’s point, we have made strides but there’s still
more to go.
And I’ll make one other final point. For
us to have hit the targets in this particular year, even at the 7,800 total
registration overall target we would have had to increase Indigenous
registrations by 27 per cent overall. For female apprentices it was 42 per
cent; in trades with low representation, it’s 37 per cent; visible minorities
41 per cent; and with disabilities, 32 per cent. So those are significant
increases, obviously difficult to do in a short period of time. You know, our
observation is it’s a multi-year challenge to do that.
Joan Pratchler: —
I can appreciate that. I’m looking at page 149 and that chart goes up to 2023,
so thank you for this.
I also notice on there that there’s a
big variance between new registrations, active apprentices, and certificates
obtained. And with those new numbers — well you wouldn’t have this year’s
because it’s not finished — are we seeing that the women in the trades-certificate-obtained
percentage, that’s increased?
Jeff Ritter:
— Yeah, it takes a number of years for that to ripple through to the
certificate obtained part. So I think we’d probably be holding steady or
maintaining at that.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay so the supports that are in place, they would help support bringing that
certificate? Is that related to . . . Are these connections close
here?
Jeff Ritter:
— The supports will help, but the results will be observed in two to four
years.
Dave Peters:
— We measure the completion based on about a six-year cycle of a cohort going
through. So if we’ve got new women entering the trades as level 1 apprentices,
they’re not expected to be certified for five years from now roughly. So you
won’t start to see kind of the certification numbers of that group for a bit.
Jeff Ritter:
— I’ll just make one additional brief comment about our area of focus
specifically as it relates to Indigenous people. You know, we talked about the
percentage of Indigenous apprentices within the system and really recognize
that fairly closely represents the working age population of Indigenous people
within the province. The challenge we see is if we look at the completion rate
for that subset of apprentices, it lags the apprenticeship population by about
20 per cent.
So you know, if I can characterize it
generally, I think we are doing a good job of encouraging Indigenous people to
participate within the skilled trades. An area of focus needs to be helping
them through to certification. And that’s part of the work that we’ll attempt
to focus on as part of the new innovation and inclusion strategy.
Joan Pratchler: —
Okay, that helps me understand that. I guess you just answered my last
question, so thank you very much.
Chair Wotherspoon:
— MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — I just want to
refer to recommendation, I believe, no. 7 with respect to formalizing
their analysis for reasons for not meeting established targets.
I notice in the update it says an
analysis for these reasons was done, but it does not say what you’ve learned
from the analysis. Is that a question you’ve already answered in some respects
here today as some of the reasons why you haven’t met your targets? Or could
you elaborate more on the analysis referred to in the update?
Jeff Ritter:
— I’ll just have to confer with my colleagues.
So that’s a really big question. So I’ll
maybe start by saying we understand the numbers really well. The reasons behind
some of those numbers can be incredibly varied and depend on a whole host of
individual circumstances across thousands of employers and hundreds and
hundreds of apprentices.
So you know, part of what we’re trying
to do with the survey methodology that we’ve increased is to try and tease out
some of the larger barriers. But it remains something that we’re trying to, you
know, have conversations with partners. For example, you know, I know sometimes
when we look at the Indigenous participation numbers, for example, we may have
an engagement with friends and colleagues over at SIIT [Saskatchewan Indian
Institute of Technologies] to see if they have any perspective on what may be driving
either increases or decreases for targets to be missed. So we’re also trying to
reach out to friends and partner organizations as we are able, as well as our
staff on the ground to see what they might be hearing.
Hugh Gordon: — Because that
underlies the . . . You know, a lot of what the recommendations are,
I guess, asking you to do is essentially, you know, keep track of key
performance metrics, setting specific targets realistic and how you are or
aren’t meeting those targets, how you’re measuring that, right. And how you go
ahead to address that probably leads into my last question I suppose, which is,
how are any of these recommendations assisting the commission in narrowing the
overall gap to labour demand in Saskatchewan?
Jeff Ritter: — Well I mean one of
the first and most obvious ways these recommendations are helping is, you know,
it confirms our belief within the commission that if employers are to meet
their labour market requirements now and into the future, they need to increase
representation of under-represented groups in order to do that. So it has
provided, you know, sort of special focus for us to continue down the path of
trying to encourage under-represented groups to both view the trades as a
first-choice career option, and perhaps more importantly for employers to adopt
best practices as it relates to creating open and inclusive workplaces to help
foster that support.
[14:30]
That would be my sort of high-level
response to that question.
Hugh Gordon: — I guess I
. . . Maybe it’s a tough nut to crack. I don’t know. Obviously you
guys are the ones on the ground level trying to do this work and trying to
nudge these numbers, working in concert with private sector mostly, right, and
the general public. Trying to get them interested in the trades.
And you know, I think that was one of
the things that the auditor general did briefly mention in the report was with
respect to perhaps looking into assigning expectations to employers saying,
listen, we have specific needs for the province. We’ve got industry needs. We
know we’re going to need X number of people in the trades, trade ABC, you know,
XYZ.
And then you know . . . And I
appreciate it needs to be a partnership. But I think I’m just wondering if your
thoughts have turned to that at all as per what the auditor general referred to
in terms of those expectations amongst employers? And if not, then what can you
do feasibly working with them, you know? Because I do believe it’s in their
best interests as well.
It’s not just a matter of finding more
people in the under-represented groups in the trades. It’s really about, you
know, narrowing this labour gap that we know we have and in the future, you
know. Responding to that.
Jeff Ritter: — Thanks, thanks for that question. So I
guess I’ll respond this way. The success that we have had is a result of
independent hiring decisions of some twenty-four, twenty-five hundred different
employers throughout the province and career decisions by eight thousand, you
know, individuals to pursue a career in the skilled trades.
The SATCC does
not control the hiring decisions of those employers, and the tools at our
disposal in terms of trying to communicate expectations to those
employers are rather limited. And I would suggest, you know, moral suasion,
perhaps a compelling business argument, would be the tools that are available
to us. I don’t know how we could communicate expectations in a strong way that
employers would respond to in a positive sense.
We try to, you know, help make the case
that increasing representation within your company creates a culture that will
help sustain a workforce and create a, you know, positive morale environment
for all of your staff. There are many of our employers that understand that
deeply and some that don’t and perhaps may never understand that. So you know,
we get a bit of a mixed bag when we engage with employers in terms of, you
know, this work. Some blow our socks off in terms of sharing stories where they
have been successful in this space, and others don’t respond favourably.
Hugh Gordon: — Yeah. I just was
wondering like if going through these processes, trying to, you know, meet
these recommendations, you know, it’s a learning process for you as well as
like how does that translate into the real world, right? And I’m just wondering
if you’ve given thought to other methods of perhaps moral suasion, whether it’s
education efforts, activities, or advertising, or other areas. I think maybe
you could make those touchpoints in your contacts with all these businesses in
a variety of levels, correct?
Jeff Ritter:
— Yeah, for sure. I guess one quick point. With the exception of a small number
of trades, apprenticeship is a voluntary workplace education system, so I need
to make that understood. Some of the efforts that we’ve taken in terms of
communicating expectations, we have added to the apprenticeship contract that
employers sign when they’re registering a contract of apprenticeship for an
employer, expectations around a respectful workplace.
We’ve also, you know, partnered with
SkillPlan to deliver free training available to employers around creating a
nurturing and respectful workplace. Uptake was low. Feedback was mixed. And our
sense was employers have other means to develop and gain access to that
training, that, you know, ours was redundant for some.
But yeah, we are trying to communicate
those expectations. But some of the things that I’ve heard from, you know,
staff on the ground that have been working directly with some of the
. . . especially female mentors is lots of companies have really
good, you know, sort of high-level workplace culture policies that unless and
until things change sort of on the shop floor, they’re just nice policies,
right.
Hugh Gordon: — That’s all I have,
Chair.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any further questions from members?
Okay, thanks again for the engagement here at the table, the responses, and all
the focus on these recommendations. These are new recommendations, so I’d look
for a motion to concur and note compliance with recommendations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
and 7.
Moved by MLA Chan. Is that all agreed?
Okay, that’s carried.
And then with respect to recommendation
no. 6, I would welcome a motion to concur and note progress.
Moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All
agreed? That’s carried.
Okay, that’s it for the Saskatchewan
Apprenticeship and Trade Certification Commission. Thanks so much for your time
here today and your leadership. Any final remarks to us before we kick you guys
out of here?
Jeff Ritter:
— No, just thank you very much. It’s been a number of years since we’ve
appeared before Public Accounts, so it took a little bit of dusting off the
“how does this work” for us to find the groove. And just appreciate the
opportunity to talk about our work in this regard.
Chair Wotherspoon:
— Okay, that’s great. Thanks so much. And thanks for the important work you do
within the province and to your team.
[The committee recessed for a period of
time.]
Summary of Implemented Recommendations
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, folks, we’ll reconvene the
Standing Committee on Public Accounts. We’re going to turn our attention to the
last couple of items on our agenda here today. First we’re going to focus on
the summary of implemented recommendations and the chapters that the auditor
has brought to us in the 2025 reports 1 and 2 respectively, chapter 3 and
chapter 8. And I’ll turn it over to the Provincial Auditor.
Tara
Clemett: — So thank you, Mr. Chair, Deputy Chair,
and committee members. I’m going to do one presentation that basically
summarizes I guess, more or less, our comments with regards to these two
chapters so you understand what you’re sort of looking at here.
As part of our annual integrated audits,
we follow up on recommendations we have previously made basically each year
until we find that they are fully addressed. These two chapters provide a
summary of those recommendations that we’ve made at various government agencies
and what actions have been taken to implement the recommendations. In all
cases, actions taken have been sufficient to basically fully address the
recommendations that we did make.
The agencies outlined in the chapters,
like the Northern Municipal Trust Account, had no audit recommendations
outstanding for the annual integrated audit. So rather than doing a separate
chapter in our public report, rather we summarize the actions they’ve taken to
basically address those recommendations. And it allows us to make sure that
there’s been recommendations this committee’s agreed to, and that ultimately we
are reporting to you that they have now been fully addressed.
So this is our way of specifically
tracking and formally reporting the implementation of the committee’s
recommendations by government, but obviously didn’t warrant a separate chapter.
It’s just getting all pulled together in these summary chapters.
I will just mention that some of the
agencies that were included in these chapters, we just went through. So
specifically we talked about Executive Council, the Ministry of Highways, and
PAMI earlier today. And we obviously discussed the implementation and the
specific actions those agencies had taken.
So with that I would be happy to answer
any questions you do have about those chapters and the tables that you have
within them.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, thanks. And thanks to the
auditor. I think we probably have thousands and thousands across Saskatchewan
tuned in today following our work. We do know that there will be, you know, a
whole lot of people that are involved in this work and these entities that
we’re talking about and the work that’s here that will be following this work,
and others that are following it as well. But for anyone who’s tracking, I
think it’s important for them to know kind of that this is the process of follow-up
that allows this committee to be so successful and for the auditor to be so
effective, this committee to be so effective in having that work implemented.
And so that’s sort of the culmination of that work.
And we might have a recommendation that
comes to us, let’s say in, you know, 2017. It comes before this committee. We
hear it. We focus on it. We get updates from the ministry. We get the
presentation from the auditor. We have undertakings of action from the
ministry. Maybe they’ve acted on it at that point or maybe they say, hey, yeah,
we’re going to do a bunch of things and here’s our timelines.
Just for those that keep track of these
things, I think it’s worthwhile for them to know that we don’t, you know, just
thank them. And of course we take them at their word and we know they’re well
intentioned, but the only way you can be really effective on these things is to
have thorough follow-up. And that’s what this demonstrates.
And often we’ll then have a follow-up
hearing. You’ll see some of that that we’ve had here today. And then what we
have before us here today is that, the action, the implementation that’s
occurred, and that reporting back to the public.
And it’s worth noting that we sort of
stand out as one of the best in Canada on this front. And I think it’s part of
this sort of dogged process or this, you know, defined process that the auditor
sees through until implementation and that we as the committee do as well. So
just a couple of words as the Chair on that front.
Any questions for the auditor? MLA
Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Oh, sorry. You go
ahead then.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — MLA Pratchler.
Hugh Gordon: — We only have about
57 questions.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — She’ll appreciate that.
Joan Pratchler: —
Sorry. Chapter 3 of 2025 volume 1, regarding that municipal trust. Did all that
information come in a timely basis in 2025 as well for you from them?
Tara
Clemett: — Yes. So I guess we’re in the midst of
doing that audit right now, but yes. So in terms of when we talked about
whether or not they were going to basically table their annual report for 2024
on time, they did. So that was great.
And in terms of the audit right now, we
anticipate finishing it — and this would be kind of for 2025 — by April this
year. But everything is on track right now. And again it’s partly because
. . . You’re probably wondering if you look at the time frame and
like why did this take so long? I think the challenge is basically it was staff
retention and the fact that this organization is run out of La Ronge.
So they have figured out in this hiring
of the director of finance, so they have figured out a staffing complement and
with the skill set that everything is going very well. And there was, yes, lots
of conversations with the ministry as well as really the trust account staff
here. So good co-operation by all.
And I’m happy to see we’re on track
because, yeah, this needed to go away. Because otherwise this was costing me a
lot of effort and time from my side as well.
Joan Pratchler: —
And then the last one from . . . or can I go to chapter 8? Were there
any issues caught with the Western Development Museum’s financial information
for ’24‑25?
Tara
Clemett: — No, so everything’s good there. So that
one was similar to PAMI. Western Development Museum was some . . . I
think what it shows in some of these small ones, and that’s why they come
through . . . Of course we consider the materiality level is smaller
for these agencies. And so significance to us, you know, things pop if they’re
only hundreds of thousands of dollars versus millions. But they’re very small
organizations. And so when you suddenly have, as I guess SATCC was just talking
about, you have those retirements, like there’s just those implications.
[14:45]
This was just again a matter of
staffing. The transition’s now occurred and everything is well. So they have
the staff in place to do what they need to to do
those reconciliations. And we like those reconciliations because that’s what
confirms the financial information’s right, so then the financial statements
are right.
Joan Pratchler: —
That’s sort of a pattern, it seems, in smaller organizations. It comes down to
not will but the staffing.
Tara
Clemett: — Correct. Yes. So just the need for
succession planning, which is work we’ve done in the past so maybe something we
need to do again.
Joan Pratchler: —
Thank you. That’s all.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Any other questions? Not seeing any,
thank you, Auditor, for presenting to us and for your work on the follow-up
that I think really allows that implementation rate to be so high, right. So
thank you very much.
I would ask for a motion to conclude
consideration of the summary of implemented recommendations chapters. Moved by
Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed? That’s carried.
Standing Committee on Public Accounts
Chair
Wotherspoon: — I’ll kick it back over to the
Provincial Auditor to focus on one of our favourite entities, the Standing
Committee on Public Accounts.
Tara
Clemett: — Thank you. So I think, as the Chair has
just been discussing, this is a chapter that does confirm and show some of the
data and the rates and the recommendation implementation. So Michelle’s going
to articulate that as she does definitely go through the presentation. So thank
you so much to the committee members for the opportunity to come and present on
this chapter today.
I am joined by Michelle Lindenbach who
is a principal in our office and really the office’s liaison with the Clerk of
the committee and responsible for preparing this chapter about the committee.
So Michelle’s going to provide an overview of the chapter on the agenda that
does describe basically the work of this committee.
I will just say that at our most recent
CCPAC [Canadian Council of Public Accounts Committees]-CCOLA [Canadian Council
of Legislative Auditors] conference that was held this year in Regina, we
actually did a presentation and an overview on this chapter. Because there is
some other jurisdictions across Canada, as the Chair has indicated, that
attempt to do a little bit of something like this. But I think this really
provides that opportunity to give an overview and show the value and just give
the committee a sense of like . . . It’s your self-assessment, I
guess.
So we did provide at that conference,
and I found a number of I guess PAC [Public Accounts Committee] members as well
as the auditors general did appreciate the information and then probably go
look at this chapter as a result.
So overall really the work of this
committee is crucial for a well-managed parliamentary system of government. And
this chapter shows that timely review of our chapters does basically help hold
government agencies accountable. So with that I will turn it to Michelle.
Michelle Lindenbach:
— Thanks, Tara. So our 2025 report volume 2, chapter 31 on the Standing
Committee on Public Accounts does not contain any recommendations. Rather it
provides your committee with an overview of its accomplishments and the status
of implementation of the committee’s recommendations.
In our view, your committee is very
important in that it is the audit committee for the Legislative Assembly. It
plays a critical role in fostering an open, accountable, and transparent
government and better management of government operations. Your work
contributes to the government’s implementation of audit recommendations. In
your review of our work, your committee makes recommendations either through
the concurrence with those of our office or on its own. Your committee includes
its recommendations in its reports to the Assembly. Your committee also reviews
the Public Accounts volume 1, which contains the government’s summary financial
statements.
Your committee has asked our office to
assess the government’s compliance with its recommendations and to report on
their status. We make this assessment as part of our follow-up audit
examinations, which take place about every two to three years after the
original audit and until the recommendations are fully addressed. We report the
results of these assessments in either separate chapters, or if not discussed
elsewhere in the report, in a summary table in the Public Accounts Committee
chapter. Each year in the Public Accounts Committee chapter, we provide you
with a status summary.
So in chapter 31 of our 2025 report
volume 2, we report as at September 2025 the government has implemented 73 per
cent of the Public Accounts Committee’s recommendations made during the
previous three years and partially implemented 18 per cent of the remaining
recommendations. This shows the government has taken action on 91 per cent of
the committee’s recommendations over the past three years. These percentages do
not include recommendations that the committee has considered but not yet
compiled in its report to the Assembly.
At the time of this chapter compilation
in September, we also noted the committee had not yet reviewed 64 chapters,
which is a decrease from the 88 chapters reported at the same time in the
previous year. The majority of the chapters not reviewed by this committee were
from our reports publicly released December 2023 or later. That being said,
since September 30th of 2025, with the support of the committee Clerk, this
committee has held three days of meetings, and after the two days of scheduled
meetings taking place right now in January, the number of outstanding chapters
will be down to 30.
So this is everything . . . it
includes outstanding chapters from our 2025 report volume 1 and volume 2, which
makes the committee’s review of chapters very current and notable. A timely
review of chapters and recommendations in our reports does demonstrate the
committee undertakes appropriate scrutiny and holds agencies accountable in a
timely manner.
And that concludes my overview, but we’d
be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thank you very much for the focus on
the committee and the importance to it. And I would open it up to committee
members that may have a question. MLA Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — I just was curious
if you could share some insight as to like . . . So we’ve got this
list of recommendations not yet implemented, and then the ones in grey are with
respect to those that are six years or older. Do I understand that correctly?
So when it comes time for . . . When we set an agenda for the next
year as a Public Accounts Committee, how are you prioritizing that?
Is it a balance between what agencies
are reporting or you’re checking in on to see how they’re making out on
recommendations? Does that happen? If they are making significant progress, do
we add them to the agenda? If they’re not, is there some back-and-forth or is
it just . . . I guess I’m wondering what the method you rely on in
order to determine what the schedule for review looks like for the committee.
Am I making sense?
Tara
Clemett: — Yes, so I think I’ll sort of give you
two answers to that question. So in terms of with the committee Clerk and then
my office’s liaison, that they set the agendas for the upcoming meetings and
what PAC should be looking at. We focus on really what is the oldest in terms
of, like, which reports, which public reports, as we said are . . .
Maybe they came out in 2023 and there was chapters in those public reports and
this committee has not reviewed them. So from our perspective, it’s really my
chapters, how far back have you not potentially looked at.
So now after these meetings, you are now
basically at 2025, so extremely current, right? So sometimes you
. . .
We were okay with almost two years’ time
frame because it’s partly the fact that an agency . . . So I do an
audit. So I think the interpersonal violence would be a perfect example, where
we just did that audit in 2025. When she did come, you know, the deputy
minister spoke to, we haven’t had that much time so we haven’t totally fixed
it. So I do think reviewing performance audits that we’ve done and taking a
year and then it coming to the committee, or 18 months, is a reasonable time
frame so that when those agencies come to you they’ve hopefully made progress
and you can say . . . you know, hold them to account in terms of, do
you think that’s enough?
In terms of our follow-up, so I’ll turn
to that though. So from my perspective I very much . . . When we make
recommendations we put them into two categories. It’s sort of, I call it an
easy and hard, but we call them type 1 and then type 2. A type 1, we think it’s
easy and in a way they should address it. So I literally code all these recs as
I make them. A type 2, we think it’s pretty hard; it might take five years.
Again I feel like with SATCC, he was
just describing at the end of the day even though he sets new targets, there’s
going to take a while in terms of his actions before he can make progress. It
takes him four years. So that doesn’t mean I’m not going to go to follow-up in
a two- to three-year time frame, but I would probably move to a three on that
follow-up. So I will keep going and going and going until they are done, every
two to three.
But there is times where we meet with
agencies, and if I’ve gone once in two . . . So I can think of some
agencies right now, and they’re saying that they’ll be done in June. I might
shift things by six months and then go, okay, I’ll give you another six. So
when I come, I know you’re done, or I hope you’re done. But it’s also so I’m
not wasting resources and coming back twice. So we’re cognizant of that as
well.
But that’s why some places do take five.
But these ones that are at six, get moving, and I’ll keep coming until they do
what we want them to.
Hugh Gordon: — Fair enough. Thank
you.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Thanks. On that I just want to give,
like, attention to the Clerk and to the liaison from the auditor’s office and
to the audit team in general for the work they do do.
It provides us as the steering committee information about, well how many days
do we need here to make sure that, you know, where we’re providing, you know,
sufficient . . . making sure we have timely consideration, that we’re
doing our job. And then as a steering committee, we have a new Deputy Chair
who’s a member of that here today, where we’re regularly working back and forth
to make sure that we’ve identified days that the Clerk and the auditor’s team
can help build the meetings for us.
And so thanks to all of you for when
your . . . If your Deputy Chair ever says to you, do these dates
work? You just give them a thumbs-up, and the same with the Chair. Any further
questions for the auditor on this chapter?
Thanks again for your work, and it was
notable that when you presented on this at the conference this summer that this
seemed to be not the practice everywhere, right, and there seemed to be a lot
of folks that felt that this was a good measure as well in, you know, ensuring
a measurement out as far as the effectiveness of committees and where they’re
at. And for that I mean we’re in good shape as a committee, so I think we heard
that here today. So thanks to all the committee members for their part in making
that happen.
Hugh Gordon: — Maybe one last
quick question. So how many . . .
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Not a chance, Gordon.
Hugh Gordon: — Because
. . .
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Go ahead.
Hugh Gordon: — Yeah, I know. I’m
sorry. I’m a day late and a buck short as usual. I just love rubbing it in
there with you there, Chair. So how many chapters are we looking at reviewing
in the next 12‑month period? Or is that hard to gauge?
Tara
Clemett: — I find in terms of the committee Clerk
and then my liaison, they seem to be often getting like 15 chapters on an
agenda — 10 to 15. So if we ever have two days, we’re going through a lot.
I guess what I would say from the
committee member standpoint, when you look at that table and I’ve said how
frequently are you meeting, meeting sort of eight times a year seems to keep
you on track. So figure out how to get five to eight meetings in your schedule
over the course of the next year is what I would recommend, yeah.
Hugh Gordon: — Thank you.
Tara
Clemett: — If that makes sense. And then they make
sure we look at enough.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — And you know, you’re steering
committee’s regularly engaging these conversations back and forth lots with the
Clerk and with the Deputy Chair and then back through the auditor’s office, and
yeah, that’s the thing. Like how many days do we need to make sure that we’re,
you know, doing the work that we need to do? The auditor’s laid that out, and
we’ve built out a little bit of a rhythm and practice to this committee.
We’ve got some new members to it today,
but usually when the House isn’t sitting, we’re meeting a few days to
whatever’s needed in January and February. I know as we looked at this period
of time at one point we thought we might need, you know, more days than we have
planned here right now. But because of where we’re at, you know, these days
look like they’re an appropriate number of days at this point. June can
sometimes be a window where we’d convene again as well. I mean we can convene
whenever we want, but June is another time that might be a bit standard. It’s
got some pressures on the auditor’s office at that time because you’ve got the
volume 1 coming together at that time.
Summer’s a possibility; it hasn’t been
standard practice. But then September and October’s a really good time again to
drill down and have three, four days, whatever’s kind of needed again to do
that work. We can’t sit while the House is sitting. So we could sit before the
House is sitting, say in the mornings, but it doesn’t leave you much time.
We’ve done a bit of that over the years, but you maybe are coming in for an
hour or something like that. So dedicating full days has been the preferred
approach of the steering committee over the years.
And then December you have some, usually
you have an engagement there, some of it that’s required either December or
early January to make sure that we’re supporting and scrutinizing the auditor’s
business plan and authorizing that budget and fulfilling our duty on those
fronts.
But your steering committee is actively
involved in all those pieces as well, and again when you as committee members
get your Chair or Deputy Chair saying hey, do these days work? You just give
them a thumbs-up. And to be honest it makes it really simple.
A
Member: — That’s binding in the contract.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — That’s right. Thanks to everyone on
this. No further questions for the auditor? Okay, I’d welcome a motion
. . . Thanks to everybody for their time and attention here today.
See you tomorrow.
I’d welcome a motion of adjournment. All
right, moved by Deputy Chair Thorsteinson. All agreed?
Some
Hon. Members: — Agreed.
Chair
Wotherspoon: — Okay, this committee stands
adjourned until tomorrow morning at 10 a.m.
[The committee adjourned at 15:00.]
Published
under the authority of the Hon. Todd Goudy, Speaker
Disclaimer:
The electronic versions of the Legislative Assembly’s
documents are provided on this site for informational purposes only. The Clerk
is responsible for the records of each legislature.