Auditor General NOT informed about Trudeau Government’s lack of Enterprise Risk Management in COVID19 matters

Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) is the coordinated, ongoing application of risk management across all parts of an organization, at all levels, from strategic planning to service delivery.

This includes how risk is assessed, the roles and responsibilities of senior leaders and all employees in managing risk, and the effective reporting and communication of risk information throughout the organization.

It prevents costly “silo” management of risks by individual departments noted for unnecessary “procedural inventions” or duplication of effort.

CSA ISO 31000:18 Risk Management – Guidelines Standard (accepted and pronounced by ISO Canada etc. is the applicable direction.) 

Organizations using it can compare their risk management practices with an internationally recognized benchmark, providing sound principles for effective management and corporate governance.

ERM is applied in numerous countries (including China!!)

It is a very definitive risk management standard, rather than descriptive terminology fumbled by the Federal Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) under PM Trudeau!

Regrettably, due to the restrictive administrative process that the Auditor General follows with respect to “input” from the general public and/or citizens, the information that is being conveyed in this email was regrettably not available to the AG for reference purposes.

• While the position of the “Auditor General” is the ultimate “stewardship” of Federal Government management its March 25, 2021 report failed to capture the essence of the Federal Government ignoring proactive risk management of COVID-19 financial, economic and business issues;
• It also failed to comment on the universally accepted proactive risk management standard “Enterprise Risk Management” (ERM) that has been applied successfully not only world wide in virtually all enterprises including health care, but also in Canada.
• The Province of British Columbia has practiced successful “ERM” since the mid to late 1990’s and the stewardship of the program is conducted by the independent Auditor General and NOT by the internal (non-arms-length) BC legislative Assembly.
• By comparison the Federal Government assigns this task to a “non-arms length” demonstrated dysfunctional Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS).
• One of the World’s largest accounting bodies, CPA Canada endorses without exception the proactive risk management paradigm of ERM.
• A major catastrophic decision of utilizing “lock-downs” could have been avoided or significantly reduced to allow normalcy in business, health and educational matters if the proactive risk concept of ERM had been applied by the Federal Government- Totally absent from the Auditor General Report of March 25, 2021.
• All of the above information (and much more) was presented to the Official Opposition at various levels and responsibilities resulting in no action to date- signifying the need for an ombudsman position to be created to respond to such issues in the future.

Some observations and quotes from the AG Report March 25th  2021 Message from the Auditor General of Canada— 

“…The government cannot ignore long-standing issues—they do not go away.,”

“.. we found that the government was not ready for a pandemic of this magnitude …”

“…What if the government decided not to wait for catastrophic unfrozen events to drive positive change in its service to Canadians?

“…I believe that these questions are worth exploring.”

This “graphic” summaries the concerns of the Auditor General’s reference to the lack of proactive risk management by the Trudeau Government (who chose instead to follow a costly “reactive risk management” process:

There is much more about this subject:   

FORWARD

The Federal Government’s latest Federal budget is being labeled in essence as “Kick-starting the economy – for recovery “- this is akin to attempting to bet on a race horse after the starting gate opens! The process and rules make it abundantly clear that the “betting” takes place before the start of the race!!-  

On a comparable principle, the COVID-19 “risk mitigation” as defined by the Trudeau government should have started before the “COVID ” pandemic and soon after the previous pandemics (SARS, etc.).

This is a FUNDAMENTAL initial step in “risk mitigation” asserted albeit sparingly in the Auditor’s General report of March 25^th 2021.

As necessary as lockdowns may have appeared to be to governments, they highlighted the government’s unpreparedness for such a pandemic. As citizens try to limp back to normalcy, it is imperative for governments to learn important lessons from the Covid-19 era – the primary one being how to manage Risks.

Trudeau’s government had a “golden opportunity” to do just that- merely by having a “mirror” approach focusing on former epidemics and applying the universally accepted “Enterprise Risk management” standard in preparedness to future epidemics such as Covid-19.

For greater certainty and emphasis:

Employing the concept of the forward looking universally accepted ERM by the Federal Government government would have achieved the necessary timely “proactive risk mitigation” and at much less cost to Canadians in terms of financial, economic, and health costs.

It would have lessened if not eliminated other collateral damages caused by the Federal Government’s costly reactive risk management and dysfunctional stewardship of COVID-19 risks.

Importantly, ERM would enlighten the Federal government on the fact that the term “closure” (negative) IS NOT synonymous with the term “separation” – the latter, a more acceptable and valid term under the COVID -19 risk circumstances.

On-going “closure” judicial challenges in Canada and elsewhere should certainly result in certainty in this narrow circumstance. The broad aspect of proactive risk management and its lack of application by the Federal Government is covered in the (validated) submission to PM Trudeau.  

In conclusion of the “forward” it is regretful that the Auditor General did not have access to my submission to PM Trudeau at the time of her recent audit of COVID-19 matters, March 25^th, 2021.                                                                                       

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SUMMARY OF THE ISSUES SUBMITTED TO PM TRUDEAU \

This is about how leveraging “Enterprise Risk Management ” (ERM) principles by the Trudeau Government  would have resulted in a much better response to COVID-19  related risks ; particularly 

in avoiding the resultant horrendous financial and economic losses now burdening Canadians under the guise of being risk mitigation . 

(Please note that by definition if an event has already occurred there is no risk!  Only “collateral damage!”!! (and there is plenty that could have been avoided had the Trudeau  government  instituted and practiced  ERM! )

Unfortunately, while the Auditor General  report of March 21, 2021 did  acknowledge /mention somewhat  the need for a proactive risk management approach , it was merely a “miniscule”  acknowledgement of the need.  

My subject submission to PM Trudeau in September 2020 and repeated in November 2020  (because of  his lack of response to the issues ) reveals and provides unquestionable validation  for  the requirement need of proactive risk management  in dealing with  COVID -19 .

And behold on April 1st (and before the Trudeau budget was expected ??)  and shortly after the “”Auditor General’s ” report ” of March 25th  2021 I received the following “emails” from both the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister in answer to a submission that I made to PM Trudeau. back in September 2020!!??) 

 (Please refer to “copies” of the content below in the order of “receipt:

And shortly following the above reply I received the following from the finance minister:

Setting 

On September 20, 2020, (and repeated in November 2020 due to lack of a substantive response,) I presented a submission (supported with some 25 Exhibits of evidence/validation) to Prime Minister Trudeau requesting a response to email correspondence to him titled-

 “A better way to manage the “wide spectrum” of risks associated with COVID-19″ 

  (Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was copied with the email submissions.)

(A copy of the subject submission (and “Exhibits” to PM Trudeau will be forwarded in a separate email following this introduction due to the volume of validating information. WJP)

Apart from acknowledging “receipt” of the submission PM Trudeau has never responded to this submission and in particular to the 11 “recommendations” for corrective action critically needed from his government. (This request was supported with some 25 exhibits of validations ignored by the Prime Minister.)

Below is a “graphic” of the resultant recommendations made to PM Trudeau (September 2020 and reorganized in priority for purposes of this reporting):

(The AG observation of “government not being ready” is extracted from my submission to PM Trudeau in September 2020 and BEFORE the Auditor General  reported)

A comprehensive submission (supported with 25 “Exhibits” of validation) to Prime Minister Trudeau submitted in September 2020 and again in November 2020 due to lack of response covering the above matters and much more can be accessed:

Trudeau Government “Reactive” Risk Management Steps to Economic, Financial and Health Collateral Damages COVID-19