Public Accounts committee  There are personal consequences if somebody misappropriates funds or something like that—

Public Accounts committee  I would say there are two kinds of issues when you talk about consequences. If we talk about personal consequences, under the Financial Administration Act we do have all the tools available, from writing a letter of reprimand to firing people. I guess I take exception, Mr. Chai

Public Accounts committee  Can I comment on this, Mr. Chair? Lots of concerns have been raised around the table here about the lack of clarity and accountability. I just want to point out that I think we are trying to address that through the review of our policies. There always are concerns raised about

Public Accounts committee  Is this the second part of the agenda? I didn't know we were going to get into MAF. But let me respond to that. On your first point, we can look at submitting to you those respective roles. That's based on the current policy. As you know, we're undertaking a review of all the p

Public Accounts committee  The Federal Accountability Act will not affect directly those respective roles. It will be any changes that we make to the financial management policies that will do so. But we can provide that to you, based on what the current policies are. I just want to make sure the committ

Public Accounts committee  What I'm saying is that the current deputy is only accountable—

Public Accounts committee  At the end of the day, if I could just complete my sentence, the current deputy is accountable for the operations of that department while he or she is the deputy. Now, we know that the precedent has been the case that when issues have arisen in departments, former deputies have

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry if I led you to that conclusion. I said the current deputy is accountable for the operations of the department while he is the deputy. So if something happened that preceded that, of course he's not responsible for that.

Public Accounts committee  Well, as I said, in terms of committees, it's been the case when these situations have arisen that the committees have called previous deputies and officials to explain what happened.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, we do intend to strengthen the accountability, and this is why one of the key initiatives that we've been undertaking is a review of all of our policies. There are a number of objectives that we want to achieve, but one of the key objectives is to ensure that the accou

Public Accounts committee  I don't want to comment on the Privy Council Office. This is the prerogative of the Prime Minister. When it comes to the appointment of deputy ministers, under our system it's the Prime Minister who appoints deputies. I would leave you to raise those issues with the officials of

Public Accounts committee  We have somebody here from PCO, if you'd like.

Public Accounts committee  Again, I think it varies. Speaking from personal experience, after 10 years of being a deputy, it depends very much on which department you're in. Some departments are very complex, and it does take a period of time to get a good understanding and be able to lead that department.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I think under our system, the minister of the day.... If a minister moves to another portfolio and another minister becomes minister of that department, then the minister overall is accountable to Parliament.

Public Accounts committee  Well, we can get into a lot of terminology about accountability, answerability, being accountable before, and being accountable to. I guess all I'm saying is that under our system, ministers are accountable to Parliament. We, as accounting officers, will be accountable before Par