Statement - Ministers respond to performance audit reports of the Auditor General of Canada

OTTAWA, ON, Oct. 29, 2026 /CNW/ -- Today, the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Minister of Health, the Honourable Joël Lightbound, Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement and Québec Lieutenant, the Honourable David J. McGuinty, Minister of National Defence, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Finance and National Revenue, and the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety issued the following statement in response to six reports tabled by the Auditor General.

"We thank the Auditor General for her important work. These reports cover a variety of areas: dental care, the management of emergency strategic stockpile materials, call centres, ammunition, the integrity of our financial system, and the collection of taxes and duties at the border. These issues have real impacts on Canadians' lives. The Government accepts all the recommendations in these six reports. We are committed to continuously improving how we deliver on government services to ensure that Canadians receive value for money.

The Auditor General highlighted a number of themes in these reports. Importantly, the Government must deliver services that provide value for Canadians.

The audit on the Canadian Dental Care Plan found that the Plan has made dental care more affordable for its members. Since its launch in December 2023, more than 7.6 million Canadian residents have enrolled and more than 4.9 million have received care. Similarly, of great benefit to Canadians, during the audit period of the National Emergency Strategy Stockpile (NESS), the Public Health Agency of Canada responded to all 81 requests for assistance from provinces and territories, supporting a wide range of emergencies, including wildfires, by providing many different types of supplies such as medical equipment, vaccines and beds. The audit of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada's (FINTRAC) found that financial intelligence contributed to 348 major, resource intensive investigations as well as many hundreds of other individual investigations at the municipal, provincial and federal levels across the country, and internationally. And the audit of the Canada Border Services Agency Assessment and Revenue Management (CARM) system found that it effectively calculated duties and taxes using information submitted by importers. In 2024-25, CARM processed around $42 billion in duties and taxes.

We must continue to deliver excellence for Canadians. While many of the audits found that programs effectively delivered on their core operational goals, the Auditor also highlighted areas of improvement. The Government must be a responsible steward to our strategic assets.

The Public Health Agency of Canada will implement recommendations regarding improvement in documentation consistency, timeliness of corrective actions and performance measurement to strengthen its management of the NESS. This will help ensure the NESS can continue to support provinces and territories in responding to public health emergencies and protecting the health of people in Canada.

Looking to Canada's military, ammunition is fundamental to the Canadian Armed Forces' ability to train, fight and sustain military operations. Ensuring the availability of ammunition, while maintaining rigorous oversight and responsible management of these critical resources, is essential to our readiness to defend Canada and our Allies. We take this responsibility very seriously. There is work already underway to address the Auditor General's findings, by improving ammunition data quality, strengthening governance and accountability, refining requirements planning, enhancing strategic stockpile management, and improving oversight of supplier performance and delivery delays. We remain firmly committed to ensuring that the Canadian Armed Forces have the ammunition they need to train, operate and remain ready, while maintaining the highest standards of responsible stewardship, accountability and oversight in how these critical resources are managed.

The Government must also ensure that programs and projects are operated in a timely, efficient, and cost-effective manner. We are pursuing modern IT systems that will deliver for Canadians.

Shared Services Canada (SSC) will adjust its procurement processes to prioritize and effectively complete the replacement of contact centre technologies before existing contracts for these services expire. Further to ongoing efforts to improve procurements for these technologies, SSC will develop a government-wide contact centre technology consolidation plan to reduce the number of contact centre contracts, keep pace with evolving technologies and scale these services according to demand. In September, the federal government announced the soon-to be established Digital Transformation Canada (DTC), building on the commitment to deliver better value for taxpayers and better services for Canadians. DTC can support contact centre modernization by testing and scaling solutions that work, reducing duplication, and backing Canadian innovation.

Last year, FINTRAC produced 7,214 financial intelligence disclosure packages, based on 3,007 unique disclosures, the largest number of disclosures that the Centre has generated in a single year. The Centre's unique disclosures included 1,678,230 financial transactions and contained 10,650 subjects of interest for law enforcement.

FINTRAC has robust processes and systems in place to analyze high-priority information provided by law enforcement and disclose intelligence on an urgent basis. The recent evaluation of the Financial Action Task Force, the expert international body that sets global standards for combatting money laundering and terrorist financing, recognized that FINTRAC's financial intelligence is, to a very large extent, supporting the operational needs of Canada's law enforcement and national security agencies. Specifically, that FINTRAC generates high-quality financial intelligence that is valued by law enforcement and used in 94% of their investigations into money laundering and criminal possession offences.

Launched in October 2024, CARM has replaced outdated paper-based workflows and aging IT infrastructure, resulting in nearly all imports (99.65%) being processed electronically. This allows importers to get goods across the border first and take care of the accounting and payments later. The Canadian Border Services Agency will phase out temporary workarounds in favor of system upgrades based on activity cost baselines. The agency will also improve user guidance tools, publish inquiry response times and refine support processes for users--having already reduced its June 2026 assistance backlog significantly.

Canadians expect the federal government to anticipate challenges, prepare for them, and deliver results. The Government of Canada remains committed to responsible management and continuous improvement to ensure that federal programs and services continue to effectively provide value for money and support the health, safety, and well-being of Canadians."

SOURCE Government of Canada

Contacts (media): Alexandre Bergeron, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Health, [email protected]; Media Relations, Health Canada, 613-957-2983, [email protected]; Shahnaz Mouhamou, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works, and Procurement, [email protected]; Media Relations, Public Services and Procurement Canada, 819-420-5501, [email protected]; Muntaha Ahmed, Office of the Minister of National Defence, [email protected]; Media Relations, Department of National Defence, 613-904-3333, [email protected]; John Fragos, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, [email protected]; Media Relations, Department of Finance Canada, [email protected], 613-369-4000; Simon Lafortune, Deputy Director of Communications and Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Gary Anandasangaree, Minister of Public Safety, [email protected]; Media Relations, Canada Border Services Agency, [email protected], 1-877-761-5945