PEI's Department of Health and Human Services last submitted an annual report for the 2014-15 fiscal year.
At the time, Wade McLauchlan and the Liberals were in power, Doug Currie was Minister of Health, and there were approximately 7,700 Islanders on the patient register waiting to be assigned a primary care provider.
Since then, McLauchlan has won one election but lost one. The PCs went through two elections, Mr. Currie ultimately resigned to run for the Conservative Party of Canada, and there are almost five times as many people on the patient registry (as of May 13th). 38,212 people).
All government departments are required to submit annual reports two months after the state's audited financial statements are released, but only two departments met that deadline last year .
I think the lack of reporting for so long is a very low level of accountability and transparency. — Auditor-General Darren Noonan
In this regard, Auditor General Darren Noonan told members of PEI Parliament's Public Accounts Committee last week that the province's Department of Health is the last of a group of chronically late people. .
“The lack of reporting by the Department of Health is of great concern and should not be tolerated,” Noonan said.
(Health and Welfare Department)
In his latest annual report, Mr Noonan said that of the 27 government reporting agencies, most of which are Crown companies, only two meet statutory annual report deadlines. I calculated it.
In the case of the Crown Corps, these deadlines are included in the state's fiscal management law, giving it legislative power.
For government departments, the filing requirements are written into Treasury Board policy rather than legislation, which states that reports must be submitted within two months of the state's audited financial statements being submitted to Congress. has been done.
I missed the deadline again.
The deadline for audited financial reports is October 31st. In its latest report, the auditor general also noted that the state government had missed deadlines for the 2022-23 financial year.
In an interview with CBC News, Noonan said the annual report should provide residents with some insight into how the government is addressing today's challenges.
“I hope they will report on some of the issues we are facing today at the Department of Health and Human Services and Health PEI.” [to] And we're telling Islanders what our plans are for improvement, what's working and what's not working,” Noonan said.
“I think there's a huge lack of accountability and transparency in not reporting for this long.”
Minister of Health Mark McClain
Health Minister Mark McClain said the department and Health PEI should coordinate their annual reports and present them to the public together. (CBC)
Health PEI submits annual reports, but provincial health officials do not have a current business plan available to the public, something Noonan also called into question at last week's committee meeting.
CBC News asked Health Minister Mark McClain why the department has not submitted an annual report since it was submitted in 2015 (the report was actually submitted to the Finance Committee). (Please note that this was in 2017, well past the deadline).
McClain said he had discussed the issue with Health PEI's new CEO Melanie Fraser.
He said annual reports from his department and the health authority “need to be consistent…we are driving policy; [Health P.E.I. is] They work intertwined. Therefore, I think that one cannot exist without the other and they should be reconciled and presented to the public together. ”
This is not something they can excuse. We need to see these reports. — Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly
However, Mr Noonan expressed concern that the Department of Health's report was too outdated and that information that may have been contained in the lost report could not be recovered.
“We probably don't publish an annual report. You might get this year's report, but all of that report has been lost since 2015.”
Noonan told the committee that he has recommended legislation to the Finance Committee that would require Ontario ministers to forgo 10 per cent of their salaries if they preside over a ministry that is late in filing financial reports. Ta.
However, the law was amended in two parts in 2019, potentially allowing ministers to delay filing past the deadline without penalty.
Opposition Liberal MLA Gord McNeilly said the Department of Health's failure to submit annual reports showed a lack of transparency to taxpayers.
“This is not something they can excuse. We need to confirm these reports,” he said.
“It's impossible for people to know where their money is being spent unless we look at the situation on the other side.”
