Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Madame Fraser, for being here.
I think we should come back to what Mr. Christopherson has said, that this is an issue of a leak, and it is an issue of accountability. Whatever the audit report comes and finds will be discussed later, but we must address the premise that the privilege of Parliament has been violated. The privilege that is ours, as MPs, has been violated. I was surprised that an FCGA could say, “What is this?” It's an ethical issue.
I remember very clearly, when I was a risk manager at the Province of Ontario, we had the biggest boondoggle under the Conservative government in the form of the Arthur Andersen contract. It was a half-billion-dollar boondoogle, sole-sourced, and the minister was not held responsible, yet ethically we never, ever reviewed it. Nobody knew about it. So I do not know why we don't leave two issues aside: one is the report itself; the other is the ethical premise of a leak.
If I understand the process correctly, you go and meet with the department to discuss the mandate and the objective of the audit, and then once the audit has been done you consult whoever is responsible for getting factual information, and after that you give a draft report, which is marked “A”.
Now, does everybody understand what “A” stands for? I can appreciate where you're coming from. A lot of people used to get the reports, and despite the fact that there was huge political advantage in leaking information about the BTI system that the provincial audit was against, nobody leaked it. I can't understand how a draft report can get leaked. Or is it the briefing that you give, and you think that because it's a verbal briefing...? Do you give the ministers a verbal briefing or do you give them an overview of the report?