The same goes also with the roles of the comptroller generals in various Westminster-based systems. There is no one common definition of what the role of a comptroller general is and what the role of the office of a comptroller general is.
Also, the office was first created back, I believe, in 1918, and over the years there have been different profiles of the office. What's important is that the role and responsibility of the Office of the Comptroller General be clearly defined in the DPR, as was reported in the report of your committee on firearms. You made reference to what the roles and responsibility are, as stated in the DPR.
Essentially, there are three major responsibilities. To give some flesh to those three responsibilities as they are explained in the DPR, as you will recall, the President of the Treasury Board announced in June—on June 20, if I recall—the creation of a task force of senior deputy ministers and two private sector CFOs to review the financial management policy framework. This committee will be reporting to the president in early December.
Since that time and before it, all of the actual policy framework of what the Office of the Comptroller General is and what it should be, and also of what the responsibilities should be of the various actors, is being developed. This will be ready very shortly, to be reviewed with the president in December.
The report of the committee that you tabled this week will be very helpful in shaping those recommendations. In fact, it will to a very large extent shape the direction being contemplated, but the consultation within the government is not completed yet. I think it's fair to say there's some robust discussion going on at the moment about what the roles and responsibilities of the various players should be. We are, as I say, having those discussions at this point in time.
I'll say a few words about the policy framework being developed. I cannot go into the various details, because the president has not been formally apprised of it, but directionally it seems to be appropriate. That is to say that there will be very clear roles and responsibilities for the major players. Of course, the roles and responsibilities of deputy heads is a question of machinery, on which the Privy Council Office should be the one making the final presentation. But the interaction among these various players, between deputy heads, CFOs and departments, program ADMs, financial officers, the Comptroller General—all these—are clearly looked into and spelled out in terms of expectations.
One of the difficulties you've mentioned very often was a lack of clarity about roles and responsibilities. This will attempt to address that issue. It is not completed yet, but your recommendations—and thank you very much for those recommendations—go very much along the idea of what is being contemplated.
Maybe on that note, I could take some questions, if you would like.