Good morning, everyone.

Mr. Chair, before we begin, I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nations, people whom we acknowledge as custodians of the land and the waters of the region since time immemorial.

Thank you for the opportunity today to appear before the committee and answer questions about the internal audit of grants and contributions at Environment and Climate Change Canada.

In my role as chief audit executive at ECCC, I'm responsible for the conduct of internal audits within the department.

I would emphasize that the scope of our internal audit work focuses on program administration and operation within the department, not on the broader environment and climate change portfolio.

The internal audit team's mandate is to provide independent and objective assessments of governance, risk management and internal control processes. This work provides assurance that administrative programs and administrative processes are working effectively and identifies opportunities for continuous improvement.

Mr. Chair, the deputy minister has made grants and contributions administration a priority, and this has also been a priority of our departmental audit committee for the past several years.

The conduct of this internal audit was identified as part of our departmental risk-based audit planning process. As part of this process, the internal audit function reviews departmental risks in relation to our priorities, and we plan internal audit projects to support the provision of assurance on these subjects. The significant growth in grants and contributions funding across many programs was one of those risk areas.

The overall audit objective was to assess the operational effectiveness of the governance, risk management and internal controls in place to administer the grants and contributions programs at Environment and Climate Change Canada and to assess progress made in implementing the recommendations of the director general committee's review of grants and contributions carried out in 2020 to 2021.

In fiscal year 2022‑23, we studied 100 grants and contributions projects worth $79 million. The internal audit team met with over 80 departmental officials working on grants and contributions, including every assistant deputy minister responsible for a grants and contributions program.

We observed a number of areas that required improvement and identified some best practices that had been implemented. These observations were captured in the two reports we published, which included five key recommendations for the department.

I believe the internal audit team's work was professional, objective and comprehensive, and I believe it effectively identified key issues and potential solutions to address them.

The audit work was undertaken in compliance with relevant policies and directives, including international auditing standards.

In addition to the internal quality assurance practices, our function also underwent its required five-year external quality review at the same time that the audit was under way. Our function passed the review and was found to operate in accordance with standards.

I believe that the department has put a robust management action plan together to address the audit findings and recommendations. Our internal audit function will be following up on progress, as we do with each recommendation that we make in our reports.

Thank you very much for your time and the opportunity today to answer questions. I look forward to responding to your questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.