Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I do. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon to you and to the members of the committee. Let me begin first by congratulating all of you on your election or re-election as members of Parliament. We very much look forward to working with you in the future. We are also very pleased

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Chair. I would agree with the member's comments that it is unfortunate at times that there is a generalization of unfortunate events to the vast majority of public servants who come to work every day with great ethics and who are actually doing a wonderful job for thi

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Mr. Chairman, it is true that there are rules. I would even say that there are many rules. One may even think that there are too many of them. Perhaps we should come back to principles of sound management instead of creating more rules. Long ago, we did an audit, before the legi

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  In fact, over the years, we have voiced our concerns regarding the accountability of foundations that had been set up and that had received substantial funds, billions of dollars. One of these concerns was due to the fact that the external auditor, the Parliament's auditor, had n

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Chair. On your question about the Bank of Canada, the discussion should probably be held with the bank or with the Department of Finance. I think a case has been made about the independence of the bank. In many countries, the legislative auditor does not actually aud

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  But in terms of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the reason that the federal government couldn't name us as auditors was that it required the consent of the provinces.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Government had agreed with us and committed to us that they would work with us to have us named. So it's a question of time and getting the consent of the various provinces. We would expect to eventually become joint auditors of the investment board as well. On first nations, w

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Four of the reports were audited financial statements, and another 52 reports were dealing with financial matters. There is often a financial report for each individual program as well as an overall financial report. Then they have to produce a whole series of other non-financial

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  That is correct, and the consequence of not filing the reports is that the funding is cut.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  If people do not produce those reports, the first nation has its funding cut, so there's a very strong incentive to produce the reports.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  We have had several discussions with the grand chief and the AFN, as well as government officials--the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs--on the possibility of establishing a first nations auditor general. It is still in very early stage

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Not quite. We disclose information regarding all aspects of office management, but we would like, as proposed in the bill, that all our auditing files, all our work sheets and interview notes and other such things be excluded from the Access to Information Act. Our audit operati

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I mean all the information involved in an audit. We believe that it should all be protected because otherwise, it could hinder our ability to carry out audits. We are entrusted with much confidential information. Afterwards, we follow a procedure in order to validate the data. So

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Our procedures provide for exchanges and draft reports with the department we are auditing. At the end of the process, we ask the department to confirm the accuracy of the facts. We take every possible steps to ensure that there are no errors in our reports.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Holland is correct that our concerns about audit access or auditing of foundations were covered or addressed last summer by Bill C-43, and I guess the whole question as to whether our mandate is expanded or not is really up to Parliament to decide on. W