I have frequently indicated to this committee, Mr. Chairman, that at the level of summary reporting to Parliament and to Canadians, I believe the Government of Canada is a world leader. I believe that is the case for a number of reasons.
First, the Government of Canada adopted full accrual accounting in its financial reporting in, I guess it was, early 2000. That was an important development.
Another reason, as Mr. Ralston has indicated, is that the government follows independently set accounting standards, the standards set by the Public Sector Accounting Board, in preparing those financial reports.
So one huge step forward was made with the introduction of full accrual accounting. And at the risk of having my name removed from Michelle's Christmas card list, we have frequently and constantly been encouraging government to take the next step of moving towards full accrual accounting in the budgeting and estimates and supply process. The government has indicated how that works. It starts with the Minister of Finance's budget, then goes to the estimates process, and ends up with the public accounts of Canada. Well, the start of the process, the budget, is full accrual accounting. The end of the process, the public accounts, is full accrual accounting. Everything in-between is a bit of a hodgepodge of cash accounting and modified cash accounting. So we'd like to see the benefits of full accrual accounting extended right throughout the supply process. That would be one major improvement.
The other improvement I would talk about—and I believe I have mentioned this previously, Mr. Chairman—is as a result of the introduction of the Federal Accountability Act. The requirement relating to accounting officers for the heads of organizations, I believe, was a significant step forward. That same legislation, as Mr. Ralston has indicated, also put in place the requirement for internal audit functions in government departments and the establishment of departmental audit committees with outside membership.
So those were some milestones in public financial administration that I think have significantly moved the yardsticks forward.