Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, gentlemen.
I'll maybe preface my remarks with a brief statement.
I was privileged to sit on the public accounts committee in the last session of Parliament, when we unanimously and vigorously put forward a presentation that suggested the implementation of full accrual accounting for our government. Regretfully, it didn't happen.
I am hopeful that within this committee we could be an added voice through government operations. I believe we will have either a solid majority or, possibly and hopefully, unanimity to recognize that when we do the balance sheet on this per se, the positives far outweigh the negatives, particularly the level of accountability to the public that taxpayers' money is being well spent and intelligent decisions are being made based on proper information.
I am very confident this committee will come forward with a recommendation.
I can assure you that the insight you bring here today is valuable. I thank you very kindly for your presentations.
It gives us more and more ammunition so that when we propose our motion, in going forward, we can do so in a better-informed way. Hopefully, we'll present a case to the government and/or the following government that will influence the rest of our legislators in the House to move on this file.
That having been stated, as we progress, I'm looking at the difficulties of implementing this. How do you go from one system to another, with the inherent challenges that would bring?
Obviously, we need an advisory panel on implementation. You classified it, and there are other people who have classified it, as a budget process review panel; in other words, a team through which we'd be able to say we're going to do this.
I'm only asking for your personal thoughts on the composition of this. Should it simply be bean counters? Should we have some legislators involved in this? Should there be legal people? Should it be a potpourri of the entire complex?
In other words, if we're going to get through this process and take a recommendation from the committee and folks like yourself, parliamentarians are not going to steer this through. We are going to need to have a well-assembled panel. What would you suggest as a composition for that panel?