Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Madam Fraser, for appearing before the committee.
I thought I'd use this opportunity to thank you for the work your office does. Without your reports and your office, we certainly could not hold the government to account. It is especially encouraging in paragraph 17 of your statement that notwithstanding the challenges all government offices seem to be facing with regard to staff retirement and replacing that staff, you've been noted to be one of Canada's top 100 employers and a family friendly employer.
But our role is not to laud here. Our role is to hold offices to account, and I would like to zero in on a couple of problematic areas. The first is crown corporations and the special investigations of crown corporations that were done. I understand that only one out of four of the special investigations were delivered on time. That's problem number one.
I also note that in the last six years, the cost has gone from $3.8 million to $7.7 million. So the cost of doing these special investigations has more than doubled, and zero percent, or none of them, actually met their budgeted number of hours.
Can you explain what problems your office is having with these special investigations of crown corporations? I think it would also be helpful to use specific examples.