OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs lumps an unfair consular services fee of $25 into the $85 cost of an adult passport, the auditor general said Tuesday.
Sheila Fraser took the department to task, saying it collects more than it should, even though its own rules say it's supposed to break even.
The fee is designed to be a kind of travel insurance for Canadians abroad who might need protection or assistance because of accident, illness or natural disaster. It includes support in the event of arrest overseas.
But Fraser said Foreign Affairs piled in other costs when calculating the fee.
"Adult passport holders are, in effect, helping to cover the costs of activities that are outside the scope of what they would receive for the fee,'' she wrote.
When Fraser's auditor ran the numbers, they found Foreign Affairs was making more from the fee than it spent.
The department, though, insists that it runs a deficit in this area. It includes, for example, the cost of the 2006-07 evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon.
However, the department agreed to review how it calculates the consular services fee.
As a rule, Fraser said, fees are supposed to cover the costs of goods, services or access to facilities or to cover a fair return for access to publicly owned resources, such as fish stocks or the air waves.
Fraser found problems with some other government fees:
- Health Canada doesn't know how much its medical marijuana program costs, although a consultant's report last fall said the costs outstripped the $5-per-gram fee charged to authorized patients.
- Fisheries and Oceans has spent the last 15 years reviewing its fees for commercial fishing licences, but hasn't changed them. The fee was based on the value of catches landed between 1990 and 1993 and although those values have in many cases doubled, the fee has stayed the same.
- Citizenship and Immigration charges fees for permanent residence and citizenship applications, but hasn't reviewed whether they should be changed.
Fraser said these departments must develop a system for periodic review of their fee structures.
