Public Accounts committee  That goes back to the recreation of the Office of the Comptroller General. In that office, we're recreating the internal audit function. Part of the challenge there is just competing in the marketplace. You have internal auditors hired into the government, professionally trained,

Public Accounts committee  We may have money, but we didn't...we just can't get the right resources, the qualified resources--

Public Accounts committee  One of the key things we've just done is to issue a new policy on internal control that will require deputy heads to sign off on their assessment of their internal controls over a period of time. We'll be phasing that policy in over a period of three years. And one of the things

Public Accounts committee  The panel was the result of a commitment made in the federal accountability action plan. The government undertook a review of the administration of grants and contributions in order to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness, so that study took place. It involved consult

Public Accounts committee  I could comment, Mr. Chair, on a couple of fronts, one being the accounting standard of the Public Sector Accounting Board for government transfers. That standard has been under review for three or four years now, to arrive at a general view of what the appropriate accounting tre

Public Accounts committee  Concerning the recoveries, the table on page 2.16 in French shows that of the $31.6 million in losses, they recovered $4.3 million in the current year and expect to recover an additional $21.7 million in future years. CRA goes through these, and of course with the power of the I

Public Accounts committee  I just have a few points to make. Another relevant legal case has just been.... There's an opinion in the court with CRTC on part II of the Broadcasting Act on broadcasting fees. The Federal Court of Appeal ruled on that just recently, recognizing that the fees the government ch

Public Accounts committee  Clearly, we have to monitor for compliance with policies, and we do that through our management accountability framework. I believe Mr. Monette referred to that in his opening remarks, that we will be commenting on the degree to which departments have been complying with our guid

Public Accounts committee  Prepaid expenses typically include where the government has paid out in advance for goods and services yet to be received. The other element is for contributions. So where the government makes a transfer payment to a not-for-profit recipient and it's a contribution arrangement as

Public Accounts committee  The residential school agreement provided for a minimum of $1.9 billion to be transferred to a trust to be managed within the CRF. The government is fully committed to paying out that full amount as a minimum amount. I think what the reference was in terms of the estimates proces

Public Accounts committee  I'm not familiar with the estimates process in terms of how that was presented exactly, but the full $1.9 billion is a minimum amount guaranteed to be paid out to residential school students.

Public Accounts committee  I'll try, without having the references here exactly, to see what would happen in 2005-06. Typically, the RCMP is able to net against its expenditures, revenues received for certain activities, primarily those services it provides to the provinces. So it's able to net those reven

Public Accounts committee  I'm an observer today.

Public Accounts committee  Just a couple, if I may, Mr. Chairman. One is, in terms of the requirements that Parliament puts on government for how it accounts for transactions and activity, through various pieces of legislation Parliament prescribes exactly how the government must keep its books. So we end

Public Accounts committee  No, we will definitely look at this. As I said earlier, when it comes to situations such as capital leases, which we treat as liabilities on the books of the government, we do not charge appropriations for the capital cost of that lease at the time we sign the lease. So we don't