Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I think that is an important point to get on the table. When we looked at this initially, there was the concept of “audit” in here. Audit is something we obviously do day in and day out in the Auditor General's office, but it does have certain rigour and strictures that could make the work we would do under this act quite cumbersome.
I suggested that instead of talking about audit we talk about assessment and the assessment of fairness. Let me explain what I mean by that. Let's say there's a measure put in for the government, as a whole, and that there are, say, three or four individual measurements as to success or failure. The fairness concept would have a number of dimensions. First of all, are those three or four measures the right measures in giving a reading as to whether that government initiative is actually succeeding or failing? They may be the wrong measures.
Second, is there a case that these measures are being inconsistently reported every three-year cycle in order to show what the government wants to show rather than what a consistent time series would show? So if you have the right three or four measures, are you reporting them in a consistent way, period after period after period?
All of that folds into the concept of fairness that we had in mind in suggesting that to Mr. Godfrey and colleagues. I think it's probably the best term to use.