Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, June 20, 2022 -

A follow-up audit of the Public Health Agency of Canada’s enforcement of COVID-19-related quarantine orders and border control measures showed improvement in some areas, but still showed deficiencies in others, according to a unanimous report of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts (the Committee) presented today by John Williamson, Chair of the Committee.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada released a performance audit in 2021 that focused on:

• whether the agency improved its administration of mandatory quarantine orders to limit the introduction of the virus that causes COVID-19 and the virus variants into Canada from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, the period after a previous audit on this topic; and

• how the agency implemented and enforced the following additional border control measures introduced in early 2021 – COVID-19 testing for travellers entering Canada, and quarantine of air travellers at government-authorized hotels pending the results of on-arrival COVID-19 tests.

The Auditor General’s second audit found that the agency improved its verification of traveller compliance with mandatory quarantine orders. However, it also concluded that there was insufficient follow-up of non-compliant travellers. Additionally, the agency did not have an automated system in place to know whether air travellers quarantined at authorized hotels as required. Moreover, the agency issued only 13 tickets to travellers who failed to comply with the requirement to stay in a designated quarantine facility.

As part of its report on this audit, the Committee has made four recommendations to help the agency improve its enforcement of present and future quarantine orders.