Public Accounts committee  Either their external auditor is the Auditor General of Canada or, in about six or seven cases, we are co-auditors with a firm from the private sector.

Public Accounts committee  In the act it is very clear that any audit work undertaken would be at the discretion of the Auditor General. So there is no direction from government as to the audits that would be conducted. That is absolutely essential, because one of the key tenets of an Auditor General to be able to do the work is the independence of the Auditor General.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me begin by congratulating you and the other members of the committee on your election or re-election and on your appointment to this committee. We very much look forward to working with you over the coming session. We are very pleased to be here today and would like to thank you for the opportunity to discuss our estimates and our latest performance report.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  No.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Yes.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Currently, all officers of Parliament are studying this question in order to determine whether it would be possible to share systems in order to make efficiency gains all round.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Not really. What I'm saying is that Parliament will decide what powers they wish to give us. We are really telling you how we expect to use them. There obviously could be things that change in the future, but at this point in time, this is how we would expect to implement that.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I do. I thank you very much. I appreciate the confidence that is displayed by this bill. We look forward to continuing to work for Parliament. If there are areas of particular concern that parliamentarians have, we would obviously be very interested in hearing that and in being able to assist you in any way we can.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Mr. Chairman, as I explained previously, we believe that the mandates of those who prepare the budgets are very different from those of the Auditor General. However, if there is a willingness to share certain administrative or other systems...

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I'm flattered.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Chair. When we referred to systems and practices, we were referring to the systems of the departments that manage the programs. For example, we would expect the Department of Industry, which gives loans to the private sector under various programs, to have a system in place that would allow it to know whether the terms and conditions of those funding agreements are being met and if the program is meeting its objectives.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Mr. Chairman, let me give you the example of CIDA, which does a great deal of development work and contributes to a number of programs in various countries. We have done audits in the past. We have studied how CIDA manages its programs and how, in the case of contributions, it ensures that all the terms and conditions are met and checks whether the money was spent for the purposes for which it was intended.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you. I guess I should start by saying that the Auditor General of Canada is the external auditor of government. The Comptroller General is, if you will, the person who sets the policies and the procedures and who has the oversight role for the internal audit. He has actually been working very actively to try to strengthen that function within government.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  We did have discussions with government on the proposed changes.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Let's just say we had good, vigorous discussions on certain items, and we believe it is really up to Parliament to decide the kind of mandate it wishes to give its auditor. We wanted to be sure that the words “at the discretion of the Auditor General” were very clear in any expansion of our mandate.