Public Accounts committee  One thing I would focus in on is that when I was auditor general I made the recommendation to the previous government that it needed to implement a long-term budget plan. It had made a commitment to get back to a balanced budget, but I felt it had issued some targets and hadn't i

Public Accounts committee  That's right.

Public Accounts committee  That would be something where I would work with the office as a whole, to determine the right priorities for the office to look into. So I'm not going to go in with any preconceived notions saying, “This is what we're going to look at.” I would work together with the whole team t

Public Accounts committee  The only way I can answer that is to say I certainly encourage that type of thinking—the creative thinking, looking for different solutions to a particular issue. I think that's important, and I try to encourage that, usually through engaging in meetings and having discussions wi

Public Accounts committee  As I've said a number of times, auditing is a rigorous process. It seems in a lot of situations to be a mechanical process. But at the heart of the success of any audit organization are the people. It is extremely important to build an environment for the people in the office so

Public Accounts committee  No, as a rule we stayed away from policy discussions. If we were doing an audit, auditing the government's compliance with the policy, and found that the government was not complying with the policy, we would make a recommendation that the government either comply with the policy

Public Accounts committee  That's right.

Public Accounts committee  No, I heard it. As Auditor General I very much believe that a government needs to live within its means and be able to afford the programs it is paying for. The reason is that it's fundamentally important to make the social programs that the citizens of the country need sustaina

Public Accounts committee  With that small of an office, in terms of the number of people and dollars, we had to be very strategic in how we selected audits. We had to be very strategic in how we scoped the audits because the danger was that we could use up all of our performance auditors on one audit that

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chair. Are we really going to go through all 28 of these?

Public Accounts committee  I believe so.

Public Accounts committee  I believe so.

Public Accounts committee  I believe so.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  I believe so.