I might suggest, Mr. Chair, that if you look at the mandate that was given to the Auditor General with respect to the audit of the House, it was to see how the House administration supports members in their functions. You can imagine, then, that a performance audit of a particular member would be how that member particularly supports the constituents that he or she represents. That would be the kind of focus of the audit within the existing rules. So when we talk about performance audit, that's what you would be buying if you asked the Auditor General to do that type of work.
Members serve their constituents in a very different fashion. From coast to coast, with small ridings, large ridings, there are very, very huge differences. Frankly, as a former assistant auditor general, I don't know how I would start to audit that or what criteria I would use to make that assessment. I think it would be quite difficult.
From an attest perspective, our financial statements, which include members' spending, are audited, and they're audited by a separate firm. They're audited by KPMG. But KPMG, being auditors in Canada, follow GAAS, which is generally accepted auditing standards, the same standards that would be followed by the Auditor General. The Auditor General would not bring a different vernacular to that attest audit, which is already done.