- Committee Meetings
We support the work of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. Their next meeting is on Tuesday, May 5 at 9 a.m. with Environment and Protected Areas to discuss the ministry’s annual report and the 12 outstanding recommendations from our office:
In our July 2024 report on Surface Water Management, we recommended that the department:
- establish process to identify when to develop, assess, and update water conservation objectives,
- improve licensing and compliance-monitoring processes, and
- publicly report relevant and reliable information on managing surface water.
In the Report of the Auditor General—December 2023, we recommended that the department ensure that underpayments to the Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction (TIER) Fund are collected when errors are found.
In our March 2022 report on Pesticide Management, we recommended that the department:
- assess risks and employ compliance monitoring to mitigate them,
- ensure public information is current and accurate, and
- develop performance metrics and evaluate the pesticide program.
In our June 2021 report on Process to Provide Information about Government’s Environmental Liabilities, we recommended that the department develop guidance to determine who is responsible for cleanup work and complete case-by-case assessments of sites.
Environmental liabilities have been a key audit matter and a subject of significant risk identified during our financial statement audits for several years.
In our report on Wetland Replacement released the same month, we repeated a previous recommendation that the department improve controls over wetland replacement.
In December 2025, we reported that two recommendations—related to Flood Mitigation Systems and the Mine Financial Security Program—that had previously been accepted by government are now assessed as not implemented. The department has advised our office that it no longer plans to implement them.
You can watch the meeting at Assembly Online.
Understanding the roles of the Auditor General and PAC
The Auditor General works as a trusted advisor to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) in its review of government spending. The committee, made up of MLAs from all political parties, uses our reports to examine how government has accounted for and used public funds, and how it is acting on our recommendations. The value of our work is fully realized when our recommendations are acted on. Visit our website to learn more about our recommendations to government and our work in progress.
The Office of the Auditor General is independent (nonpartisan) of government and those it audits. Its work is mandated in legislation, and is not negotiated under contract, ensuring its independence of what it audits and how it reports the results of its work. This ensures the work is objective. The Office of the Auditor General is a credible and trusted source of information on government spending and activities.