Public Accounts committee  The answer is no.

Public Accounts committee  Well, the issue here is that if I'm not following the law and doing accounting as provided by the Financial Administration Act, it would be breaking the law. So you can make your own conclusions in terms of what it means. It's not something I would do.

Public Accounts committee  As I mentioned in the response to the Auditor General's report, the points have been noted. There is no doubt that improvements needed to be made. A four-point plan was put in place to prevent any repetition of similar situations.

Public Accounts committee  The fact that Bill C-2 is not...

Public Accounts committee  In terms of accountability, as Comptroller General and the person accountable to Parliament, I must put controls in place so this kind of situation does not reoccur.

Public Accounts committee  That would be recorded in the books, in the DPRs of the centre, and then it would be booked in the central provisions in the public accounts.

Public Accounts committee  As my colleague Mr. Wiersema has already said, he performed the Comptroller General's duties on an acting basis from December 12, 2003 until March 2004. He had previously been Deputy Comptroller General.

Public Accounts committee  A liability must be recorded in the books of the Government of Canada—not necessarily against an appropriation—when there is the economic substance to say directly that there is such an obligation that will mature and that the government will eventually become liable for. It goes in the books of the Government of Canada—the financial statements, not the appropriation.

Public Accounts committee  As the Auditor General has mentioned, this is a very small amount compared with the overall liability recorded in the balance sheet, so you would not see it as a single line on the balance sheet per se.

Public Accounts committee  The transaction was recorded in the books, in the financial statement, as an accounts payable, as an accrued liability at March 31, 2004. That's what we were referring to when I reviewed the matter at the time.

Public Accounts committee  I was the Comptroller General as of June 1, 2004.

Public Accounts committee  If I may conclude on this, sir, I was not at those meetings. I looked at the situation here.

Public Accounts committee  If I may, Mr. Member, the books that are prepared for the Government of Canada.... There are two sets of books: one is the financial statements of the Government of Canada; the other one is the book of the appropriations. In the financial statement of the Government of Canada, we're directed under the statement of accounting principles to record liabilities that closely match those as prescribed by generally accepted accounting principles.

Public Accounts committee  I'm saying that the amount, the contingent liability of $21.8 million, was recorded in the financial statement of the Government of Canada. It was not recorded against the appropriation based on the legal advice that was obtained. Do I like it? No. But the legal advice was making reference to the fact that the law, the Financial Administration Act, makes reference to the word “debt” and not “liability.”

Public Accounts committee  If I may, in my statement on page 15, I say that a senior official of my Office and myself met with senior officials from the Office of the Auditor General as part of its public accounts 2004 audit. That was on August 10, 2004. The purpose was to discuss this transaction. At that time, I submitted the legal opinion to the Auditor General.