Unfortunately, I don't have anything specific on that. I didn't come prepared with a specific case.
I've spent 25 years as a financial officer for the federal government. I can tell you that what is meant by that is that it's difficult for program managers to deliver on their programs when there are a significant number of rules they have to comply with. I understand this legislation attempts to resolve some of those issues—and that's a positive thing. So in that context, we are hoping to ensure that this legislation does not add other layers of rules and regulations that can in fact end up being counter-intuitive.
In the world of government, like the world of business, there is a balance. There has to be a reasonable level of risk imposed in the process, so that you don't build impediments to services to Canadians. Some people find that strange, coming from financial officers. There's a perception that we are bean counters, but nothing could be further from the truth; I think that particular description has gone by the way of the dodo bird. It really comes down to the fact that these are professionally qualified individuals, and they're really looking at the purpose of why they exist. The financial officers are there to ensure probity in terms of how funds are spent, but at the same time to ensure that the programs are delivered. We are concerned that there is a tendency to try to legislate risk away, and I don't think that's going to be the case; I don't think you're going to get there.
As the Auditor General mentioned, these are isolated cases; there's not a widespread scandal going on in the federal government, not that I'm aware of. I would suggest that the tendency sometimes to overreact causes the issues. And then when you do so, there is this element of building gates and loops that individuals have to go through, and that's the bureaucracy that we've been talking about in this particular report and that we're trying to avoid. So it's not really a case of saying, don't introduce legislation—because we do learn from our mistakes—but to be aware that when you're looking at legislation, government has to allow for reasonable risk in day-to-day processes in order to be efficient, and that legislation is not necessarily the answer.