Thank you for coming today and congratulations, Mr. DeMarco, on your appointment. We're looking forward to working with you and hearing more from you.
I do want to follow up on some of my lines of questioning from when you folks were visiting with us last, which I think was back in March and November of 2020. During those meetings in March and November, I asked about some specific government programming and the ability or inability to do your job as a monitor when the government plays shell games with ministerial responsibility through horizontal transfer.
As an accountant, it seems to me that horizontal transfer is a great strategy to hide money and confuse people. For example, with the supplementary estimates (B), the environment department transferred $3.3 million to the Department of National Resources to plant trees, and also $5.2 million to Crown-indigenous relations for plastic waste. To me, this gets to some of the complexities that you get into when you're auditing. The numbers can get rather confusing.
If you recall, Madam Hogan, in November I asked you whether, if the minister is failing to take responsibility for climate action, the government is purposely moving towards this type of obfuscation to avoid accountability.
You said:
The government is definitely moving in a direction where there is a lot of cross-organizational push for programs to be delivered in such a fashion.
Madam Hogan, first of all, do horizontal transfers make it easier or more difficult for your department to complete its auditing tasks?