In fact, over the years, we have voiced our concerns regarding the accountability of foundations that had been set up and that had received substantial funds, billions of dollars. One of these concerns was due to the fact that the external auditor, the Parliament's auditor, had no access to these foundations' books to see how these substantial sums of public money were spent. Bill C-43, which was passed last summer, answered this concern. It was a bit different, because the foundations had been set up in such a way that departments had very little influence or control over them. Departments found it very difficult to ensure any kind of accountability.
Now, we can audit the management of foundations that have received $100 million and more, which covers most of them. Currently, we are carrying out two audits of two of these foundations.
What the bill proposes is different. It will cover the vast majority of programs that involve subsidies, contributions and loans. Let us emphasize the fact that it is really up to program managers to ensure that the agreements concerning subsidies, contributions and loans are respected and that the program attains its intended goal. They must create a system, because this no longer involves single, isolated transactions, as is the case for foundations. Transactions come in series and require the appropriate monitoring systems. The external auditor's role consists in auditing these monitoring systems and in noting whether improvements should be made, and of course in reporting this to Parliament. We expect that this will be the normal procedure.
In very rare cases we might have to intervene, but in our opinion, this would not be done on a regular basis. We believe that it would be rather unusual for us to be called upon to audit the books of a recipient.