Mr. Chair, I want to be sure that the committee does not think we are raising any concerns about the move to safety management systems and knows that we really looked at the administration of the process.
I'd like to draw a parallel with our work in financial audit—this is really all about auditing. In the world of financial audits we moved to reviews of systems many years ago. When auditors first did the audits of the Public Accounts of Canada, way back 100 years ago, they would look at every single expenditure. Today, quite honestly, there isn't enough money in the world to have enough auditors to look at every expenditure in government. We have to look at the systems the government itself has in place to make sure the expenditures are appropriate and duly authorized.
We document the systems, we test the systems, we do spot checks, and if the system is working well, then we can use our resources to focus on higher risk, which is really what is happening in this instance. To draw a parallel, it is a more efficient way of doing it, and it is also a much better audit, because you're actually focusing where there is greater risk.
I take the example of our office. We are actually doing more work now with fewer people than we were 10 years ago, and probably we can conclude better audits, because we're really focusing on the issues of higher risk rather than looking at every single transaction.