I'll try to answer the first part of that question. It goes back I think to the original question as well.
What we felt very attractive about this bill is not only that the institution of the Comptroller General's office has been brought back, but if we look at the bill we see the addition of a parliamentary budget officer, the new authorities granted to the Auditor General, and the creation of various roles, such as a chief audit executive and chief accounting officers. Obviously some people have put a lot of work into thinking about this.
When you try to look at it as a non-accountant—I looked at it more maybe as a fraud examiner or something of that nature—the system is really designed to be as strong as it possibly can be, quite frankly. I don't say that because I'm before this committee; rather, it's a recognition that a lot of energy went into thinking about this and segregating the duties and authorities and responsibilities. We would support that in its entirety. As I say, I don't support it only as an accountant; from a systems point of view, I think it's remarkably strong.
Will it assure us that scandals will never occur? Probably not. I don't know that there is such a thing as a fail-proof system, but I think what we have before us here is certainly a large improvement. Whether or not government or parliamentarians will ever have 100% assurance.... I think that might be overzealous or ambitious. But I think you're certainly on to a good start, and with a bit of experience, the refinements will be brought to it to possibly correct what might be outstanding.
Thank you.