Perhaps I'll start, Mr. Chairman, and the two gentlemen may add to it.
That number in the budget column is the government's estimate when it tabled its budget in the House of Commons. As I'm sure you can appreciate, trying to estimate the future revenues of the Government of Canada, the amount of tax revenue it is going to collect, is a very, very difficult challenge. It is not money that's gone missing or shouldn't be there; it was their estimate. When the Minister of Finance tabled the budget, he said he was estimating or budgeting for this amount of revenue. The actual amount of revenue came in $6 billion higher than that, but it is a difference between the budget, or the estimate or forecast, if you will, and the actual results.
Mr. Chairman, very briefly on the Public Sector Accounting Board, if I may just make a quick comment there, you indicated that you were concerned that the board may not be independent and that provincial comptrollers control that board. I would like to assure you that the CICA goes to great lengths to assure itself of the independence of those standard-setting boards; and I, personally, am quite satisfied that the board is setting standards independently of preparers, of comptrollers, of auditors. It is an independent standard-setting board. It consults broadly. It seeks opinions and advice, but it sets those standards independently. So I want to give you that assurance, if I may.
Perhaps the Comptroller General wishes to add something on the budgeted versus actual outcomes.