Thank you, Auditor General and your colleagues, for being here again today.
I want to emphasize one part. You mentioned the recognition of your office. I want to tell you that an office with strong morale where people are happy to come to work often trumps the wage. With that usually comes good performance. I do commend you for working hard through your public relations and human resources to make that happen.
In your opening statement, Ms. Fraser, in paragraph 12, we talked about decreasing the number of performance audits for the next two years. I don't know if that means you're doing a pilot project for two years, but you're going to do those once in the spring and once in the fall, rather than three times a year. You say:
We believe this will give Parliament more time between reports to hold hearings, while still providing members of Parliament with the information they require....
Why is this good now, and why is the change just coming now? Is it strictly because we're in an economic time where we need to tighten our belts on the budget? Is it about the balance between budget and efficiency? Is it because we have technology that's helping? Is it that you now have a stronger dependence on the internal audits of departments?