Government Operations committee  Could I leave you with one thing?

Government Operations committee  It is somewhat tangible. When we came up with accrual accounting for senior governments, we produced a publication, twenty questions about government financial reporting, in French and English. It was a while ago and these are my last two copies, but I thought if I left them with

Government Operations committee  It starts with the basics and goes right up to the financial statements, and it might help.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  I will do my best to answer all of those for you. The government financial statements right now consolidate all government organizations that are controlled by the government. That's the standard, and the Government of Canada follows the standard. They get a clean opinion on the

Government Operations committee  To answer that as well as I'm sure you would like, I'd have to have a more intimate knowledge of what has been done now and what's left to do. I think you probably have experts within government who could probably give you a better feel for the specifics. Ron has mentioned that

Government Operations committee  I think it will vary by situation. Certainly the accrual basis of accounting treats leased tangible capital assets, as we call them, the same way as owned, if you're going to be leasing it for a very long time. In fact, we call it a capital lease; it treats them exactly the same

Government Operations committee  You're right, they do. They call them intangibles, and goodwill is one of them. They do put a value on them and write them off when the goodwill doesn't seem to be there any longer. I can't say it's one I've ever seen them try to apply to heritage assets, though I must agree tha

Government Operations committee  Yes, and that same preparer push, auditor pull happens when they look at any of the values of the capital assets on the government's books. Right now all we require for heritage assets is that you have a record of them so you know you have them. Somebody knows they're there. Obvi

Government Operations committee  Often.

Government Operations committee  Some kind of market price has been put on it. It's not something you have done yourself.

Government Operations committee  I would say that Ontario isn't there yet. They're facing some difficulty in terms of bringing a whole bunch of new organizations into the reporting entity right now. That's the biggest issue they're dealing with. It's a new standard we issued, and they're fighting to deal with it

Government Operations committee  B.C. has pushed it down into the departmental. It's become more part of the culture. I think you're dealing, in a lot of other governments, with the whole inertia of the way things are now. Lacking a crisis or a wholesale reform of how government manages, the impetus just hasn't

Government Operations committee  I came with Mr. Salole because he may have to leave and I'm his backup. Should there be anything he wishes me to answer, I will. If he has to leave, I'll continue to respond for as long as you wish.