Public Accounts committee  We were not asked to.... Our request from Parliament was not to review their model, sir.

Public Accounts committee  We don't know what their model is.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. When we produced this report for parliamentarians a year ago, public estimates were not easily readily available for the F-35A variant, nor were long-term sustainment costs, so at that time we felt this would be.... Well, we were asked to produce this estimate under the Parliament of Canada Act.

Finance committee  That's $148 million, sir. So as countries decide to postpone delivery, it does two things: it potentially reduces the cost, but then all the other aircraft subsequent to that point actually then have to absorb the cost increase, because essentially we're looking at what has been described to us as kind of like a total cost program divided by the number of aircraft.

Finance committee  Effectively, if you look at where Canada was originally looking to purchase, that point would have been in a fairly high level of this current learning curve associated with the production in the low-rate initial production, which would have been a relatively high cost compared to the last units.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question, Mr. McKay. Right now the program is in what is referred to as low-rate initial production. So you have net R and D costs, you have relatively high costs associated with small batches of early production associated with the risks and challenges at that stage.

Government Operations committee  When we try to describe in our reports what's available to parliamentarians in the way of information, we try to ask for things already collected in the ordinary course of business. The idea is not to impose a new activity burden or a new cost burden on the government. We can show you all of the fiscal exercises undertaken by the government and the collective information.

Government Operations committee  I think that it is all about synchronization. Yes, we think that it can help parliamentarians to understand the process. It is really a matter of whether they want to see the two things integrated, perhaps by changing the calendar. Actually, some countries introduce two bills at the same time.

Government Operations committee  I would also add that, in order to make the process more effective, it might be a good idea to incorporate the budget bill into the supply bill, as some countries do. The two would be a bit more in sync. That would enable parliamentarians to deal with only one amount and to focus on priority issues, while studying a wide range of issues at the same time: the budget and supply.

Finance committee  We'll be releasing a report tomorrow that looks at the quarterly financial reporting of the departments, and, in advance, you'll note that some departments do report the impacts of the Budget 2000 freeze. So there are some high water marks, and it could be very helpful for parliamentarians if that could be applied uniformly.

Finance committee  One of the things we do—not only do we provide this integrated monitor and database for parliamentarians, but on a quarterly basis we provide an expenditure monitor that provides reporting of major variances in items. That report provides an opportunity for us to scrub some of those things.

Finance committee  In our view, there's not actually a material financial issue—this is an internal, relatively minor, coding issue between the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Receiver General. Our understanding is that it's actually being resolved as we speak.

Finance committee  It's just a question of the level of aggregation of the financial reporting, a couple of categories between the report the Treasury Board Secretariat provided and the information received by the Receiver General and Public Works. There was an aggregation of a few categories. By the time that feed was reported to us, those categories were collapsed a little bit, so….

Finance committee  Correct. There was no actual material issue, financially. We've contacted them and they've resolved it.

Finance committee  I think the $10 million that was in the reporting is correct. The $100 million is for the full category.