Public Accounts committee  From my office?

Public Accounts committee  My colleague here, Bill Matthews.

Public Accounts committee  Maybe I could ask my colleague to give a technical answer on that $15 million. I'll come back on the lessons learned, if it's okay with the member.

Public Accounts committee  In closing, I want to talk about what is the lesson learned from this matter. As I have mentioned, the report is from the Auditor General. These are quite unusual circumstances, and we have to make sure to prevent this kind of a miscommunication or error from happening again. So we've put in place a number of action plans, including one in which the Comptroller General, the next time he or she is not in agreement with, say, the deputy minister, must advise the deputy minister in writing of the disagreement on the proposed accounting treatment.

Public Accounts committee  Can I ask my colleague who received this? My colleague, Bill Matthews, is a senior director in the office of the Comptroller General.

Public Accounts committee  I would have to ask. It was very shortly thereafter.

Public Accounts committee  As I said, I came on board on June 1. I was first notified by my officials that there was an issue with this file on June 17. I met with my predecessor on June 29 to discuss this matter and to have a better understanding of it. Then there was a meeting for the closing of the public accounts, I believe, on August 10.

Public Accounts committee  If I may, my predecessor didn't give a positive response. My predecessor declined to challenge the legal opinion.

Public Accounts committee  The report of the Auditor General on the firearms, a special chapter, was done in November and December and in January 2006, just recently—

Public Accounts committee  March. Okay. It was in the last two or three months, in March 2006. The matters were reviewed at that time with the Auditor General. A conclusion was made that there's absolutely no disagreement with the Office of the Auditor General on the error of 2002-03. This is a technical error.

Public Accounts committee  There's one very important point, sir, and it deals with obtaining an unqualified audit opinion on the public accounts of the Government of Canada. The Auditor General made the statement that had she known about this transaction at the time, it would have given rise to a qualification on the audited financial statements of the Government of Canada.

Public Accounts committee  Well, when we met with the secretary, he said that transaction would have triggered a qualification. That led me to my conclusion: I will not do anything that will knowingly trigger a qualification on the financial statements of the Government of Canada. If the Auditor General is of the opinion that this would trigger a qualification because her perspective is that it should have been recorded, I might disagree with it, but at the end of the day I will depend on the opinion of the Auditor General and will respect the opinion of the Auditor General.

Public Accounts committee  For me, no.

Public Accounts committee  I came on board on June 1, so—

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry. No.