[2] Among the more significant issues addressed in her reports during her 10-year tenure as Auditor General of Ontario was the "unacceptably large" gas-fired power plant cancellations in 2013;[3][4] the disagreement with the government over the treatment of public sector pension plan surpluses/deficits in the provincial budget;[5] the "needlessly complex" use of "rate-regulated accounting" under the Fair Hydro plan;[6] the "disorganized and inconsistent" response to the COVID-19 pandemic;[7][8] and the lack of necessary environmental and economic analysis in the decision to release land from Toronto's Greenbelt.
[9] A native of Winnipeg, Lysyk earned a Bachelor of Administrative Studies (Honours) degree from the University of Manitoba, and obtained her designation as a Chartered Accountant while working with Coopers & Lybrand (now PricewaterhouseCoopers).
[13] Premier Kathleen Wynne disagreed, and set up an expert advisory panel that concluded it would be misleading to not include the province's share in the budget surplus.
[16][15] To avoid having the borrowing expense, and the debt, show up in the province's financial statements, the Wynne government announced the Fair Hydro Plan which employed "rate-regulated accounting.
"[16][15] This is a concept used in the United States' generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) standards whereby power rates would be reduced, and revenue to pay the cost would be collected through future billing of customers.
[6]: 8 Auditor General Lysyk said the Wynne government created a "needlessly complex" scheme,[17] and she disagreed that the deferred rate recovery could be called a "regulatory asset.
"[7] She also said the long-term care sector was not prepared or equipped to handle the pandemic,[19] and that Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. David Williams, "did not lead" and did not fully exercise his powers.
[8] Premier Doug Ford accused Lysyk of overstepping her role, saying "Don't start pretending you're a doctor or health professional" and "Stick with the number crunching.
In 2017, Lysyk was named a Fellow of the Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) of Ontario[24] a distinction that formally recognizes CPAs who have rendered exceptional service to the profession and in their communities.