Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, thank you for your invitation to appear before the Committee on the Auditor General's Fall report on the implementation of Canada's economic action plan.
I'm joined today by my colleagues from the Privy Council Office, the Department of Finance, Transport Canada, and Infrastructure Canada. I will be providing some brief general comments on behalf of my colleagues. They may wish to add some specific comments as well.
We are gratified by the report's positive findings concerning the efforts of central agencies and departments. The success of the initial economic action plan rollout noted by the Auditor General is a result of much hard work by the government, including many officials.
The Auditor General's report highlights the work of departments and central agencies in developing and reviewing economic action plan initiatives.
She also singles out the important role played by internal audit groups in the departments involved.
The report commends central agencies for working together and in parallel to speed up policy and financial approvals.
In keeping with the commitments we have made to the committee, I am pleased to table the central agencies' action plan, which describes how we are following up on the report's recommendations.
There are three recommendations directed towards the central agencies.
The first of these recommendations concerns reporting to Parliament. As the Auditor General's report notes, Treasury Board Secretariat released guidance for departments to report on EAP initiatives in their 2009-10 departmental performance reports in May 2010 and will do so again for the 2010-11 DPRs. The 2009-10 reports were made public on November 3.
The second recommendation concerns final reporting on the EAP. Six reports have now been tabled on the EAP, in addition to the detailed information provided in budget 2010 on job impacts. With several months still left to go until EAP winds down, the Department of Finance continues to monitor the impact of the economic action plan. A final report will be prepared.
The Auditor General's third recommendation calls for central agencies to assess which practices used to implement the EAP could be implemented, where applicable, to provide more timely and efficient processes for the design and delivery of current and future programs and initiatives.
As we have indicated in our action plan, we are assessing which practices can be applied to other similar initiatives where applicable.
This concludes our opening remarks. My colleagues may have some points to add.
Thank you very much.