Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for coming this morning to give us the presentation. I'm glad we were able to review the various options. That was very helpful, actually.
We're in the final stages of this, the final phases, and I'm hoping there's going to be consensus on this in terms of accrual-based budgeting, specifically for appropriations. I think we've examined this issue fairly extensively. We've met with various witnesses in the past, and you've alluded to the various committees that were struck. This issue has been examined every which way possible over the past few years, and I think there's a deep-rooted desire now to come up with some recommendations and move forward.
I think your remarks also alluded, Mr. Moloney, to the idea that you had read the transcripts from when we met with representatives from British Columbia and Ontario with respect to their feedback and views of the changes that they made when they went to accrual-based budgeting. Some of the issues that emerged from our discussions with them, at least in terms of the areas that I targeted, were system changes, costs, and implementation. Those are really the three areas that I focused in on in terms of my questioning, and my colleagues did as well.
I'm a bit confused about the PWC report, because I thought the mandate was a bit different. When I actually realized what the mandate was, it was interesting, but we'll talk about that later. But based on the models that you've highlighted, and particularly model 4, which I believe you just reviewed momentarily, I believe it's probably the best, with the least amount of cons. That's just my viewpoint, and I therefore wanted your feedback.
It was brought to our attention that seven major systems are used by various departments for budgeting purposes. If we were to implement model 4, what would be the impact to the system changes, the costs associated, and some sort of implementation timeframe with those?