We will leave that because we're going to ask for five or ten minutes at the end of meeting to discuss planning anyway.
Carrying on then, I'm going to introduce our guests. Our witnesses today are from the Treasury Board Secretariat. We appreciate their being with us again today. I believe that Mr. Bill Matthews will be leading the delegation. I'll let him introduce the officials he has brought with him.
I would say at the outset that today's meeting is the culmination of a great deal of work that was triggered by the report this committee tabled called “Strengthening Parliamentary Scrutiny of Estimates and Supply”. I think committee members will agree that this is one of the most important pieces of work to come out of the 41st Parliament. We were gratified that in the government's response to the report they did see fit to agree with many of the recommendations.
Today we will be dealing with recommendations 1 and 2, which were answered by letter by the minister, I believe, on April 13. We received two letters from the minister dealing with these subjects. On recommendation 1, they find no compelling evidence to support a move to accrual appropriations, but recommendation number 2, that we deal with the program activity model of government departments, has led to the presentation that we're about to hear today.
We've had one in camera session dealing with some of these issues, which the analysts advised they were unable to put into the paper they produced for us, but committee members will probably remember some of the presentation. Mr. Matthews has advised that he won't be giving a full presentation to repeat much of that information, but he will make some opening remarks, and we'll have the luxury of time to ask any questions we like.
Having said that, by way of introduction, Mr. Matthews, please take the floor and give your opening remarks.