I would now call this meeting to order. Bienvenue.
This meeting, colleagues, has been called pursuant to the Standing Orders to deal with the main estimates for 2010-11 for the Office of the Auditor General, which would include vote 15 under Finance, as referred to this committee. Also, we will be dealing at the same time with the report on plans and priorities and departmental performance reports from the Office of the Auditor General.
I should point out that we have before us this morning the Auditor General, Sheila Fraser. She's accompanied by the Deputy Auditor General, John Wiersema, and the Assistant Auditor General, Lyn Sachs.
Before I call upon the Auditor General, I want to make a few preliminary comments that I think are important. I view this as a very important meeting and a meeting that is somewhat different from every other meeting that's held by the public accounts committee. In most other meetings, as everyone is aware, the committee reviews the expenditures and actions of various government departments and agencies to determine whether those departments and agencies are being managed with due regard to economy and efficiency, and whether measures are in place to measure and report on effectiveness. In other words, our job is to hold the government to account. In so doing, we rely extensively on the work of the Office of the Auditor General.
Then the question becomes, who holds the Auditor General and her office to account? The general answer, of course, is Parliament: the Office of the Auditor General is accountable to Parliament. The specific answer is the public accounts committee.
So in this meeting the committee will review the estimates document, the departmental reports on plans and priorities, and the departmental performance reports and make due inquiry as to whether or not the Office of the Auditor General is managed with due regard to efficiency, effectiveness, and economy.
I want to remind members that pursuant to the Financial Accountability Act, the Auditor General is a designated accounting officer, and she's personally accountable to Parliament for ensuring that all funds appropriated to her office are spent in accordance with all government policies and procedures, that the accounts are properly recorded and presented, and that the proper systems of internal control are in place.
At the end of the hearing, the committee will vote on vote 15, that being an appropriation of $75,103,833. According to our rules, the committee can either approve this vote, negate it, or reduce it. Of course, it cannot increase this amount.
I also want to remind members that in reviewing these reports it's incumbent upon us to ensure that the Office of the Auditor General is and remains totally independent of the executive, and secondly, that the Office of the Auditor General has sufficient resources to do the job it is mandated to do.
Having framed the nature of the hearing, I am now going to call upon Ms. Fraser for her opening comments.