Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have long been critical of the way in which the budget of the Auditor General's office is determined. Like all other federal government departments and agencies, the Office of the Auditor General was required to negotiate its budget with the Treasury Board Secretariat. We found it rather inappropriate to have to discuss our Office's funding requirements with the very same people who were the subject of our audits. We wanted parliamentarians to be more involved in the process.
We worked with the government to develop a pilot project proposal last year. The proposal called for the creation of a committee of parliamentarians to give advice to the Speaker of the House of Commons. All agents of Parliament would discuss their funding requirements with this advisory committee. Treasury Board Secretariat officials would also come before the committee to discuss their analysis of the situation and their funding recommendations. The whole process would in some respects be more transparent. The committee would then make a recommendation to the Speaker of the House who in turn would make a recommendation to the President of the Treasury Board.
Parliamentarians will now participate in the process. We have not had an opportunity as yet to meet with the committee because it only got down to work in November, just before the session ended. Be that as it may, the current government has indicated that it intends to reconstitute the committee. So, we look forward to meeting with committee members.