Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, Mr. Ricard and Mr. Hayes.
I will begin with a comment for the chair, and for everyone.
Mr. Ricard, in your introduction, you made it clear that your office does not have sufficient funding to do its job properly. That is extremely troubling.
Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Poilievre's very pointed questions relate directly to COVID-19. We realize that the Office of the Auditor General of Canada does not have the resources needed to thoroughly analyze this crisis. With all due respect, I think his comments were entirely justified. We can only hope that this might spur the government to grant Mr. Ricard permanent status as Auditor General immediately.
My first question, Mr. Ricard, has to do with the Canada Development Investment Corporation, which will manage the large employer emergency financing facility. Normally this corporation would not manage government programs because it owns assets. Consider for example Trans Mountain, or General Motors Canada when they were nationalized, and so on. The Auditor General audited the corporation in 2018 and concluded that there were serious deficiencies in its governance regarding possible conflicts of interest within its board. The Auditor General also noted weaknesses with respect to board independence; risk identification, assessment and mitigation; and risk monitoring and reporting.
Do you think the Canada Development Investment Corporation is the appropriate vehicle to manage a government program, to decide who will have access to this assistance and to set conditions for ensuring that society as a whole benefits?
Do you think this is consistent with its mandate?
Thank you.