Hon. Marty Klyne: Honourable senators, I’m pleased to speak today to the revised Senate Audit and Oversight Charter, which is presented to this chamber in the third report of the Standing Senate Committee on Audit and Oversight. The revised charter before you today is the result of a thorough review carried out by the Audit and Oversight Committee, the first review to take place since the Senate first adopted the charter in 2022.
The committee’s work is in accordance with the charter itself, which mandates a periodic review of the document. As part of its review, the committee received and carefully considered feedback from the three major divisions of the Senate administration: legislative services, the corporate sector and the legal sector. The Audit and Oversight Committee’s revisions to the charter add some clarity and transparency to the work of the committee, and some of the revisions are simply editorial in nature. For example, some of the text has been simplified in order to remove duplications with the rules.
One notable change relates to the committee’s reporting obligations to the Senate, which are clarified in section 6-5 by adding that the committee will be able to table information in the Senate on the approved multiyear risk-based internal audit plan, including planned engagements and any resource limitations. This revision shows the Audit and Oversight Committee’s commitment to transparency.
Other changes proposed by the committee also claim to add clarity. I will outline some of these changes.
The Audit and Oversight Committee’s CIBA membership restrictions, outlined in chapter 2, were expanded to add that senators cannot be members of AOVS and CIBA committees simultaneously. This change is in keeping with the sessional order that was adopted by the chamber on June 4, 2025.
Recognizing that the Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration Committee does sometimes create working groups, the charter was revised to specify that the Audit and Oversight and Internal Economy membership restrictions do not apply to Internal Economy working groups.
Chapter 5, on the Audit and Oversight Committee’s budget, was revised to ensure that the text accurately reflects current practices. I would like to reassure colleagues that the edits in this section do not change anything with regard to the Audit and Oversight Committee’s budgetary processes. Rather, this section clearly reflects established practices. The revisions differentiate between the budget allocated annually to the Audit and Oversight Committee in the estimates, on the one hand, and the budget process that the Audit and Oversight Committee must follow when requesting any additional funds, on the other hand.
Again, I wish to stress that the Audit and Oversight Committee must still present a report to the Senate for the Senate’s decision when asking for additional funds on top of the Audit and Oversight Committee’s allocated budget. This requirement remains unchanged.
Section 6-6 provides that the Audit and Oversight Committee will have access to information from the Senate Administration that falls within the purview of the committee’s mandate as set out in the Rules. Additionally, section 6-12 relates to access to information for the Senate’s Chief Audit Executive, which highlights the need to respect parliamentary privilege and solicitor-client privilege and the need to adhere to security clearance requirements.
Revisions were made to the sections pertaining to the Audit and Oversight Committee’s intersessional authority. The edits clarify the intersessional authority’s membership and quorum. For instance, an edit now specifies that external members who were members of the committee at the time of prorogation or dissolution remain members of the intersessional authority, notwithstanding the expiry of their term of appointment.
Finally, the section on the periodic review was revised to enable a review to take place every five years rather than every three years. Increasing the length of time between reviews is more reflective of the amount of work involved in conducting such a review.
The Audit and Oversight Committee’s third report also contains two other requests. First, the Audit and Oversight Committee requests this chamber’s authorization to propose amendments to section 3:05 of the Senate Administrative Rules, or SARs. If the revised charter is adopted, the Audit and Oversight Committee believes that the section on the committee’s budgets within the SARs should also reflect current practices and should, therefore, align with the budgetary provisions within the revised charter.
Second, the Audit and Oversight Committee requests this chamber’s authorization to propose an amendment to the Rules of the Senate to incorporate an automatic referral of work by the Audit and Oversight Committee in past sessions and by past intersessional authorities to the Audit and Oversight Committee in a new session. This request is not linked to anything in the charter itself. Rather, the Audit and Oversight Committee would like to propose such a rule change in order to ensure that the committee can carry out its responsibilities without any delays upon the start of a new session.
Before ending my remarks, I wish to emphasize the following: The Rules of the Senate retain their precedence over anything contained within this charter. The changes proposed by the Audit and Oversight Committee seek to add clarity and enhance transparency. The Audit and Oversight Committee’s revisions, if adopted, would ensure that the charter accurately reflects current practices and would make the charter as effective a document as it possibly can.
To conclude, I would like to draw my colleagues’ attention to an edit made to section 1-4 to emphasize the Audit and Oversight Committee’s role in sustaining Canadians’ trust in the Senate. An effective and accurate charter will help the Audit and Oversight Committee fulfill this important role.
I therefore ask for my colleagues’ support in adopting the Audit and Oversight Committee’s third report. Thank you.