That's not an easy question to answer. I don't think so.
What happened at the Department of Public Works and Government Services was rather special, because the group that was handling the sponsorships was not subject to the department's control systems. It was separate and had its own finance and supply system, whereas all the other activities of the department went through the regular systems. It was at this level that a major failing occurred. We feel that if the sponsorships had gone through the regular systems, we would have identified the problems much earlier.
The other problem was related to the internal audits. An audit had been carried out, but there was very little follow-up. Furthermore, at the time, the internal audit reports were not being sent to the Treasury Board Secretariat, and they were also not being posted on the website.
All the internal audit reports now have to be sent to the Secretariat and posted on the website. Likewise, the establishment of independent audit committees whose members are not part of the government makes things much more rigorous.
In this way, we hope to ensure that there is much better monitoring of the internal audit reports on management problems and that action is taken to correct these problems.