Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Perhaps I just will briefly refer to my opening statement again.
Once again, congratulations to the government on a good set of accounts. This is ten years of successive clean opinions from the Auditor General's office.
We encourage the government to continue to work on the revenue numbers. The revenue numbers are the biggest estimate and the hardest to get right for the public accounts, both the total revenue estimate and methodology for the total revenue estimate, as well as the allowance for doubtful accounts. There are big numbers there, and we encourage the government to continue to work on those.
On departmental financial statements, we're moving forward slowly. We encourage the government to continue to make sure that departments move forward for audited departmental financial statements, not only because we think it's better information for Parliament, but because it's going to drive better controls, better systems, and better information for ongoing management of the department.
Finally, with respect to accrual appropriations, with all due respect to my colleague here, the issue has been under study for a long time. I believe the Auditor General first raised it, as Mr. Kramp indicated, in 2004. We are now in 2009. We still haven't entirely figured out the way forward. I take the Comptroller General's point that we need to move cautiously and carefully, but it shouldn't take quite that long, in our opinion.
The final comment, Mr. Chairman, if I may, is that Mr. Timmins has been in charge of the audit of the Public Accounts of Canada for some four or five years now. He's announced that he'll be retiring this summer, so next year Mr. Timmins will not be here to represent the office on the public accounts audit. On behalf of the office, I want to thank him for all the work he's done on this audit--