Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Desautels and good morning Mr. Clark.
Mr. Desautels, you say that the Treasury Board Secretariat should play the role of a head office. To what degree, that remains to be seen. I will explain. Almost all financial management regulations or others come from the Treasury Board Secretariat. We all tend to think that Treasury Board should also play the part of a policeman to ensure that each of its regulations is well observed. It remains that in fact, all kinds of departures can happen in departments without Treasury Board being aware of them or unable to notice them under the existing processes.
I am quite willing to see that Treasury Board Secretariat can become a head office but some responsibilities must be transferred to departments so that they can themselves look after their internal management. According to you, where do we draw the line?
The Auditor General told us recently that during audits, some sort of threshold was observed. In other words, they do not look into spending of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 or $20,000 but on much greater amounts. I imagine that that was the way things were done when you were Canada's Auditor General.
Down to what level should the Office of the Auditor General lower this threshold? According to you, up to what point does the Treasury Board Secretariat must transfer its responsibility and let the monitoring to others?