Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, December 10, 2012 -

OTTAWA – The federal government monitored the progress and spending of Canada’s Economic Action Plan, ensuring that federal stimulus funding was delivered within a limited time frame, according to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ report presented today in the House of Commons by Committee Chair David Christopherson.

In November 2011, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) released a second performance audit on Canada’s Economic Action Plan (EAP). The OAG examined the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, the Knowledge Infrastructure Program, and the Community Adjustment Fund, which had a combined value of $7 billion. The OAG found that for these programs, the federal government monitored the progress and spending of projects, taking corrective action in a number of cases. The programs met the objective to spend federal funds within a two-year time frame. However, the design of the Community Adjustment Fund did not allow for performance measurement and reporting of jobs created and maintained, and performance reporting by departments and agencies was fragmented.

In its report, the Committee observes that federal public servants undertook significant efforts to ensure that EAP programs were designed and delivered in a timely manner. They should be commended for their hard work and dedication.

The Committee notes that the government released as an annex to Budget 2012 its final report assessing the overall economic impact of the EAP. This report found that the EAP had reduced the size of the contraction in employment in 2009 and had created or maintained almost 250,000 jobs as of March 2011.

As understanding the effectiveness of the various components of the EAP would help the government design future infrastructure programs to obtain the best value-for-money, the Committee recommends that the government include in its response to the report an evaluation of the major individual components of the EAP to determine their long-term effectiveness.