Government Operations committee  I will answer your first question. You seem to be a bit disappointed that the PricewaterhouseCoopers report does not contain any definitive conclusions. Under the mandate given to the firm, the purpose of the study was to survey the situation. A great deal of confusion surrounds

Government Operations committee  I like model 3 because of the transparency and visibility, but also the controls it gives to parliamentarians. Also, one of the concerns that we all have is that somebody can play with the amortization, depending on whether you have room or not. But given that we're having our s

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  —depending on whether it's done with other activities or other changes that we're talking about. So it would take significant dollars, but that is not a bad ballpark figure in terms of how much it would cost. However, it could also be done over a number of years. What might also

Government Operations committee  It was over five years. It was a PricewaterhouseCoopers study recommending some specific timelines in terms of what you do after year one, year three, year four, and year five. That would not be a bad model.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much for that question. Maybe I can take the first stab at it. You say model 4 is probably the one you would favour. I would say maybe model 3 and model 4 would be the two models that would be roughly in the zone of where it would probably be the most useful for m

Government Operations committee  If I may, Madam Chair, perhaps we could dive right into the subject of the meeting. My colleague will go through the presentation, and after that we can have a discussion. David.

Public Accounts committee  No, there's not. On order of magnitude, when you look at the public accounts, you see $200 billion worth of expenditure and $1 billion worth of materiality. Is the materiality half of 1%? In the industry, it has changed to between half of 1% and 1.5%. It's in that range. But aga

Public Accounts committee  No disrespect was intended, Mr. Chairman. My apologies.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the question. As the Auditor General herself said, there is no magic answer. It really depends on the environment, the circumstances, and the risk involved. However, I think we're getting close.

Public Accounts committee  Like I said, I really read the report with great interest, and I thank you for the recommendation. It provided me with a pretty strong sense of direction of the intent of the legislators, in terms of where you want to go. If I may, I appreciate that this might not be satisfactory

Public Accounts committee  There's no doubt about that, sir.

Public Accounts committee  The policy that was enacted as of April 1 this year says that by 2009 all the larger departments—which means about 40 to 45 in total, if I'm not wrong—will have a majority of their members who will be citizens. They will no longer be members of the management team of the departme

Public Accounts committee  Some of them have started. We have some independent members.