I would like to formally call the meeting to order. Bienvenue à tous. I welcome everyone here.
Colleagues, this meeting is a little disjointed; we're going to divide it in two. Originally we had scheduled the Auditor General and her staff and also the Secretary of the Treasury Board, Mr. Wayne Wouters. Mr. Wayne Wouters is unable to attend today so we had to break it in two. And this, as everyone is aware, is the first meeting of our study into the roles and responsibilities of the Treasury Board.
I'll give you a little background on this, if I may. This whole issue, over the last 24 months, I suppose, was subject to much comment when we had the sponsorship issue, Gomery, and it's been identified by a number of people as a concern. In the words of Justice Gomery, it was a grave “malaise”, if not a “breakdown” in the relationship of financial management and government. And of course the main actors are the Treasury Board, the Office of the Auditor General, and the public accounts committee. When you compare the Treasury Board and the public accounts committee, basically we have the same roles. We are responsible for accountability to Parliament, whereas the Treasury Board is responsible to the executive.
Again, as Justice Gomery said, we must engage in more dialogue and not confrontation. In the last number of months there have been a number of developments in this issue. Of course, we have the tabling of the Federal Accountability Act, which mandates that deputy ministers in the future will appear before this committee accountable for the management of their respective departments, which I think is a fundamental change in the way Ottawa operates. We have again the re-establishment of the Office of the Comptroller General. That was originally a position here in the public service. It was abolished some years ago, but it was reinstituted in 2004. Of course, Mr. St-Jean will be a major witness and a major player in this study.
In that regard, the analysts have prepared and circulated a binder for your help and assistance. I sense and I view this study to be very positive. I think it's going to have positive outcomes. We're not criticizing or complaining to anyone right now. We just want to make the system works better. That's why we're all here.
Without saying anything further, I'm just going to turn the floor over to Mrs. Fraser.
Welcome, Mr. Timmins and Mr. Smith, who have been here many times before. I want to thank you for coming. I want to thank you for assisting this committee in this particular study, and I invite your opening comments.