Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair. I would add that there are probably two main causes for the delays. The one that has been discussed here is the complexity of the design of the program. We also found a number of areas where the federal administration could be streamlined. Probably the most i

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair. I'd simply like to congratulate the committee. I think you've been asking the right questions today. I quite often was struck by the fact that you were asking the same questions that we ask of departments when we audit them. The other thing I'm struck by is th

Public Accounts committee  We have not. I had mentioned in the opening statement that we had not looked at these two.

Public Accounts committee  We did have a chance to read them in advance of this. Tempting as it might be to offer an on-the-spot audit, I'll resist the temptation.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair, for that question. Again, as you said, we have not audited these specific reports, so the comment I will make is a much more general one. I think I'd highlight two real challenges, both of which have been summarized already, including by the chair in his ope

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm pleased to appear before the committee to discuss two departmental performance reports and chapter 5 of the April 2005 Auditor General's report. With me, as you've said, is Tom Wileman, the principal responsible for this area. I wish to thank the c

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Chair. Of the six departments, we found one that had reasonable practices to identify where things needed to be improved in terms of the evaluation function. In that instance, the sorts of practices that we saw were quite useful ones that could guide improvements in o

Public Accounts committee  Yes, certainly. We found that the centre had been monitoring developments in the evaluation community among federal departments. Our main concern was that they didn't complete many of the initiatives they had started.

Environment committee  They are quite numerous and span both departments. One of the key ones, which we haven't addressed yet in questions or in responses, is that there was a large section of this report that talked about the lack of coordination between the two departments. In Fisheries and Oceans, t

Environment committee  Thank you, Chair. Again, we didn't look at that particular one. We took a sample of quite a number of projects, so we don't know that particular one. But I would say that the impression you have in reading that is similar to our overall findings in the projects that we did find

Environment committee  I really don't think we can speculate as to why what happened has happened. Clearly, what happened is that the department set up a number of policies about the kind of information it should have before it when it makes these kinds of decisions. Across the board what we found was

Environment committee  Chair, with regard to both Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, I would say first that the response suggests that they are quite serious about fixing the problems. Again, when they have persisted for 23 years, you always take that with a grain of salt. But we're impressed

Environment committee  Yes, that is correct. We did, however, say that the quality assurance needs to be improved at Environment Canada. We found in 15 cases that everything was compliant with the policy. What we didn't find, which we would expect in any organization like this, is that there would be t

Environment committee  Yes, Chair, I would say by and large we were pleased with the response. It is specific. It gives parliamentarians some very clear timelines. It gives you a basis on which you can follow up. When they say something will be ready by 2009 or 2010, then parliamentarians can follow up

Environment committee  Thank you, Chair. As you said, this is a policy in development, so any comments are in real time. Because it still is in development, we weren't able to look at it in any detailed fashion. It's a fairly short paragraph in an audit that spans many pages. With that, I'll just a