Government Operations committee  In this particular model, you would only vote for the $25 million. We have actually referred to that as a weakness of all these approaches, unless Parliament is willing to provide multi-year voting authority. The fact is that for this department, in year one, you are voting $25 m

Government Operations committee  This is an existing problem, and this particular initiative would not resolve that.

Government Operations committee  In today's estimates, you see votes, and you see items that I believe are displayed with an (S), which means statutory. So for the information of Parliament, certain amounts will be spent by a department pursuant to statutory authority in this year. It's in the estimates. It's no

Government Operations committee  If done properly, yes.

Government Operations committee  Again if done properly, yes.

Government Operations committee  I believe they are in fact quite different, and it does come down to accounting standards. But I really should defer to the government's accountant, as well as Parliament's accountant.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. I'm happy to speak to that as well. I think there's no doubt that we're talking about fundamental changes in what departments do, how they do it, and what systems they do it with. That certainly will take leadership. Whether there's one champion or a team of champions

Government Operations committee  I'll speak to that first. As we talked about with part IIIs, I can see some value in perhaps having a pilot department, or two or three. However, I don't want to bring you a mixed set of estimates--a bunch of departments on one system and a bunch of departments on the other. That

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Good morning. Thank you to the committee for inviting us back again. We realize there are questions left from our last appearance. We expect there will be additional questions, based on what you heard from some of the witnesses, particularly the representa

Public Accounts committee  You mean the one in 2005.

Public Accounts committee  Perhaps I could speak to that, just to clarify. When the Department of Finance brings forward its fiscal framework, it is informing Parliament of its expectations for revenues, its plans for the total degree of spending. What Mr. Fonberg was trying to explain in his statement wa

Public Accounts committee  Perhaps I can try it. It's Treasury Board Secretariat's job to know how much spending is authorized for defence, and to work with Parliament to get Parliament's votes in support of those plans. The Department of Finance takes from Treasury Board Secretariat the amount that the

Public Accounts committee  We are the ones who come to Parliament and go to the department. It is then the role of the deputy and the senior financial officer in National Defence to spend that money.

Government Operations committee  One aspect of the progress report would be represented by the supplementary estimates, which the president tabled this week. It showed to Parliament $224 million of specific areas that had been asked for but will not proceed. The other aspect of that, if I understand the questio

Government Operations committee  Not formally.