Program News

Today is a historic day for us.

It is a celebration of the past, as we mark the graduation of our Fellows, approach the end of this five-year international program, and reflect on our rich history of accomplishments.

But it is also a celebration of new beginnings. Today we unveiled our new website and announced our new name: the Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation. And, most importantly, we are celebrating the new beginnings for the Fellows who are about to return home, where they will unleash their talents and surely become excellent leaders at their SAIs.

Looking back on this year, there are many highlights from the international program. Not only did we have an outstanding class of Fellows, but we also held our first oversight workshop for the National Assembly of Vietnam, helped SAIs improve their audit selection and multi-year planning through an internship program and a new Discussion Paper, and engaged with INTOSAI to help SAIs audit the implementation of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

And yet again this year, we had tremendous support from Canadian partners. This included the audit offices that hosted the Fellows – the OAG of New Brunswick for the first time, the OAG of Alberta continuing its close relationship with the SAI of Vietnam, and the OAG of Canada, our longest-standing partner. In addition, the OAGs of British Columbia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia all contributed to our international program’s capacity building activities.

Today is also a time to reflect on this five-year program and on our decades of international support. The numbers tell the story of our success:

• Twenty-eight Fellows graduated during this five-year program. That makes 251 graduate Fellows in total, from 53 countries. Graduates have gone on to great success—11 have become Auditors General and many more have held very senior positions in their offices.
  
  
• We held 36 workshops abroad during this program, reaching nearly 800 participants from the four countries’ SAIs and 140 participants from the oversight committees. Since we began giving international workshops in 2007, we have held 92 workshops in total, reaching nearly 2000 participants from audit offices and nearly 400 from oversight committees.
  
  
• Sixteen senior managers from the SAIs participated in our internships during this program and developed strategic projects for their offices.

But the numbers and our impact don’t end there. Over our rich 37-year history, we have:

• trained more than 8000 performance auditors in Canada through the delivery of more than 400 courses;
  
  
• advanced the state of practice of Public Accounts Committees in Canada and abroad, having delivered more than 60 workshops based on our seminal research, guidance and tools for strengthening parliamentary oversight;
  
  
• staged 30 conferences or symposia, reaching more than 12,000 individuals;
  
  
• released more than 75 research publications, guidance documents, and discussion papers; and
  
  
• entered more than 5000 audits and other documents into our Audit News Database.

And when I think about how advanced the state of performance audit, parliamentary oversight, and financial accountability is here in Canada today—and in the countries we have supported—I can’t help but wonder could it possibly have happened without the influence of the Foundation? I don’t think so.

And there is much more to come. Among other initiatives:

• We are excited to soon be publishing our newest Practice Guide, on Auditing Mining Revenues and Financial Assurance for Site Remediation.
  
  
• We will be releasing Accountability in Action, our new guidance for parliamentary oversight committees.
  
  
• We are expanding our unique training and networking events, such as our Emerging Leaders program and the pan-Canadian Forum for Municipal Auditors.
  
  
• We are poised to become a global leader on auditing gender equality with the publication of our upcoming Practice Guide to Auditing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, on which we are partnering with the International Instititute for Siustainable Development, Women Deliver, and the INTOSAI Development Initiative.
  
  
• We are beginning to explore how we can help build audit and oversight capacity in First Nations communities here in Canada.

And with all of that said, as we reflect on our history and look ahead to new beginnings, I can’t help but marvel at what a uniquely, truly, and quintessentially “Canadian” organization we are. With widespread support from so many organizations across the country, and with individual contributions from thousands of Canadians, what could be more Canadian than working together towards the greater public good?

Tonight, we wish our graduating Fellows the best as they prepare to return home. And we hope that they will always consider themselves “Canadians.”