Thank you, Chair.
I have thought of a bit of a red herring in looking at a cost-benefit analysis of this whole process. I can recall being in business once, when an audit cost me $20,000 in professional fees. Goodness knows what it costs government. I know from my audit that there was an $11 discrepancy.
I'm asking for an opinion on the following. We have programs being run by the best people we have available in this country, by all of our program directors and ADMs. We also have an Auditor General who is doing a great job, and we're very, very pleased to see that. But we have auditors auditing the auditors of the department, who audit the internal auditors, who audit the evaluators. We're running down through....
I'm just wondering about the horrendous cost involved. Is the benefit of all of this comparable to the cost, or are we really just building another multi-levelled or layered bureaucracy? We have 350,000 civil servants in this country employed by the federal government alone. Is it necessary to audit the auditors, and to audit the other auditors who audit the auditors who audit the evaluators?
On my point, could you again just make a quick observation, Madam Fraser?