I think some of what we've learned from the past cuts and maybe what COVID is teaching us.... Back in 2016 or so, when the entire government went through a reduction in its budgets, we did what we felt was the right thing for us to do as Canadians, and also looked at ourselves and took some cuts.
Since then, there have been new mandates given to us, as you mentioned, that were not funded. Whenever we were faced with that, we had to make difficult decisions that required us to divert some money that would have been invested in IT to deal with some of the financial work, mostly, that we received without funding, as well as an expansion of our mandate on the review of the sustainable development plan. If we fast-forward to what we've learned from COVID, while that was a place where it made sense at the time to slow down our investment, I think everyone across the country is realizing that reliable IT is something that is absolutely important.
I know a good part of our funding request will include helping us deal with that IT gap that we have.
Going forward, what might a funding mechanism look like? There are many options out there. There are other countries that have independent funding mechanisms. As you mentioned, adjusting to expenditures is one way. Some of the difficulty with that is that it's not predictable and could ebb and flow. When an audit office like ours relies so heavily on our human capital, it takes time to attract and hire and retain those people. You can't just hire them and let them go. We do need some form of stable, predictable funding.
When we put in a new funding request to the Department of Finance, we will as well include in there an idea and a recommendation on our front as to what might be a possible funding mechanism. Hopefully we can then open the dialogue on a more long-term solution. I see our funding request getting us through the three to five years, and then hopefully we can look at a more long-term solution for the back end of my mandate, as well as for the office going forward into the future.