The concept of materiality is one that is used largely for financial statement audits, and it assists an auditor in making a judgment when an auditor has to give the opinion on the financial statements, as I'm sure the member will know.
For example, when we do the audit of the financial statements of the Government of Canada, our materiality is $1 billion, which means that if there is an error in the financial statement of $1 million, we will not qualify the opinion. If there is an error of $1.5 billion, we will qualify. So it assists the auditor in giving the opinion and to say what extent of testing we have to do and when we would actually qualify the financial statements.
When we get to the performance audit, the question of materiality--I don't want to say it doesn't exist--is very different. It's more a question of what is significant, what is important in the management of that program. There are many areas that actually can't be quantified in terms of dollars. In many of the audits, we will say that there aren't sufficient performance measures, that departments don't know what they're achieving, that there isn't a financial notion attached to that.
In some of the recent audits we've done, we've talked, for example, in regard to the RCMP, about staffing problems and recruiting problems. It's not always related to dollars. So the performance audit has a different notion.
Obviously there have been certain audits that have gotten a lot of public attention. In my five years, there have probably been three that have received a significant amount of public attention and attention from the media. That has to be put into perspective, because over that period of time we've probably issued 100 or 150 performance audits. Because three have become causes célèbres, is that unusual or not? I can't really judge that. I believe, though, in all those cases, the issues were serious, and we can't always judge the issues by the amount of money involved. It goes beyond money.
I've had people question, saying, well, the sponsorship program was only $100 million. I say, yes, but the issues in the sponsorship program weren't about the money but about what was done and how that was allowed to occur. So we can't always equate everything in terms of money.
I do agree with you that these cases are, for the most part, the exceptions in our management. We have said in numerous reports that we should be proud of the public service we have; that the vast majority of people are ethical, come to work each day with great integrity, and work very hard for their fellow citizens; and that we should not generalize these cases to all the public service. They really are exceptional cases, and that's perhaps why they receive so much attention, because they are so exceptional.