Thank you, Mr. Chair and Monsieur Choquette.
Essentially, the Auditor General and the commissioner take the same approach in terms of looking at third parties, and it's really putting the onus on the federal department that is providing the funding. We look to see if departments are in fact tracking or monitoring the results that are being achieved through the transfer of payments to third parties. The federal government's policies surrounding grants and contributions are essentially what we hold the government accountable to, and that policy typically requires that departments have a performance measurement strategy in place, for example, to be able to track the impacts that the funding is achieving.
Typically, there are certain provisions in those contribution agreements regarding reporting back to the federal government, so that the federal government has an opportunity to collect that information and then use it to assess the type of performance it's achieving, but we don't typically look at the third parties themselves. We look more at the federal government's responsibilities in terms of providing that overall stewardship for the funding it provides.