Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
I think the comment was made in relation to the fact that the audits, the departmental financial statements, would cost 20 times as much as what we currently spend on the public accounts of Canada. No, I do not believe that is a correct statement. I think it is a significant exaggeration of the cost of auditing the large 22 departments as compared to the cost of auditing the public accounts of Canada.
The Office of the Auditor General has not—I will be totally transparent here—estimated how much it would cost to audit all 22 large departments, because, frankly, that was not a reality we had to deal with in the foreseeable future. The indications we were getting was that most large departments would not be ready until 2015, 2016, or perhaps even later than that.
So given that it is so far out in the time horizon, we have not attempted to estimate the cost of audited departmental financial statements. But I can say with confidence that it will not be 20 times the audit of the public accounts.