Standing Committee on Public Accounts

Comité permanent des comptes publics

For immediate release

Ottawa, December 13, 2017 -

The Canadian Museum of Nature (the Museum) has good corporate management practices, but improvements are needed in governance, risk reporting, and the implementation of its policy on information technology security, according to a report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts tabled today in the House of Commons by the Hon. Kevin Sorenson, Chair of the Committee.

In the spring of 2017, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada (OAG) released a performance audit whose objective was to determine whether the systems and practices selected for examination at the Museum were providing it with reasonable assurance that its assets were safeguarded and controlled, its resources were managed economically and efficiently, and its operations were carried out effectively. The audit found that the Museum had good management practices in place for strategic and operational planning and for performance measurement and reporting, but that improvements were needed in some areas.

Specifically, the OAG found that the Board of Trustees did not fully perform its compliance monitoring role. There were weaknesses related to filling positions on the Board of Trustees, which were beyond the control of the Corporation; and in the Corporation’s risk reporting and information technology security. In this report, the Committee made six recommendations that seek to ensure that the Museum implements each of its proposed corrective measures in order to properly address the deficiencies identified in the OAG’s audit.

For example, the Committee recommended that the Museum present the Committee with a multi-year plan to attract additional funding from every level of government, the general public, private corporations and academic sources, in order to digitize its entire collection and make it accessible to all Canadians.