Mr. Chairman, I think I touched on this point at the last hearing, but essentially to repeat, the original estimate of $300 million was to remediate the internal controls. It was basically to bring the departments up to a state such that the controls would be satisfactory for the Auditor General to choose a controls-based audit as opposed to a substantive-based audit. That work has gone on, and part of the remediation and the future work to be done will in fact have contributed to the disclosures that I mentioned we'll be seeing.
That speaks to the preparatory work around getting controls in place. There then is the second aspect, which you talked about: once you've built the foundation and you go in, year in and year out, to actually do the work, it would be an additional cost. It would be a recurring cost each year.
I've already indicated the number of hours that the Auditor General spends auditing the public accounts of Canada. I would say that there is at least an hour-for-hour corresponding cost to departments. Obviously we wouldn't know that until we actually got into the situation, though.
The Auditor General is in today, looking at all the same transactions and looking all the same controls, so the implied benefits that Mr. Wiersema refers to are as implied today as they would be implied under any alternative scenario.