Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll be asking questions because I'm new here.
It says here that the role of the House's committee on public accounts occupies a central position in accountability. Being an accountant and auditor by trade, I seek your guidance on some issues.
I see that lots of checks and balances were put in place through Bill C-43, that you had an expanded mandate, that the Comptroller General was a re-establishment, and that internal audit departments were there. Then I looked at the peer review of the performance audits you did--and you got accolades for that--and your financial audits.
The reason I give you this is that I want a perspective. When you give your audit opinion, do you feel that your audit is taken out of context and sensationalized? This goes back to my question of materiality: within the concept of $186 billion, what is material? Being in the province of Ontario, I used to say to the provincial auditor, what is material? Not a single taxpayer dollar should go astray, but what is materiality?
The premise of the introduction of the Federal Accountability Act was that somehow we are a very corrupt country—it reminded me of third world banana republics, and I thought, are we really?—and that the legislation being brought forward is the most anti-corrupt legislation.
So number one, what is materiality? Number two, is your report being sensationalized? And number three, are we really a corrupt nation? That goes against the grain of what Justice Gomery said.