Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you very much, Auditor and Assistant Auditor. For the record, let me just say that I, as the NDP representative, continue to respect and support you, as does our caucus. You do an excellent job, and as opposition members we need the tools that you provide us. I think there's a good relationship there, and I just want to compliment you again on the work you do. I think you're serving Parliament and Canadians well.
Having said that, let's look at where we can make some improvements. I note in your opening statements that you said, “Departments reported they had fully implemented 46 percent and had substantially implemented 26 percent of the performance audit recommendations”. That means that 54 percent haven't been fully implemented, and over a quarter have not even been substantially implemented. I have to tell you, Auditor General, that's not a good number. I don't find that over half failing at what we've set out to do is anything to brag about.
I know that this committee, for the first time in the history of Parliament, has taken the initiative to put in place an accounting procedure whereby we now have staff people report back to us over a period of time on who is making gains and recommendations and who isn't and why not. In the past, as you know, those recommendations were made and they just went out there into the darkness, and they might or might not--and probably not--come back ever to be seen again.
So we both have an interest in ensuring that we have a better uptake, but I don't see this as anything to say that we're there. So in light of this failure on both our parts, where half the recommendations have not been fully implemented, what else do you think we can do? Or are you expecting that our new tracking mechanism and some changes you've made are going to give us some results in the next couple of years? We really can't go around continuing to pretend that half a failure is anything to be happy with.