Thank you, Mr. Chair. That was articulately stated, if I might add.
Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.
To that opening comment by the chair, I'd like, first of all, to add my thanks to Mr. Matthews for the deck. I think it's very helpful. For comparative purposes, I think this type of information is very helpful to the committee and, I'm sure, to those watching. It helps everybody to better understand the work we're trying to understand and truly deliver on behalf of all Canadians.
So thank you for that.
Ms. Cheng, I'd like to begin with you and ask you a few very brief questions with regard to the clean audit. Before I do, I just want to read your economic highlights briefly for the record.
On page 1.3 in section 1 under the highlights, you make the following comment:
Five years after the global recession, the global economic environment remains fragile. Despite the challenging external environment, the Canadian economy has been resilient. For instance, Canada has led all other G-7 economies in real GDP growth over the recovery. This has translated into one of the strongest job creation performances over the period, with over 1 million more Canadians now working than in July 2009, when the recovery began....
I think this truly gives us a good standard from which we can launch into the next year. We talked about the clean audit and the quality of the work that you and your people are performing, which I applaud. For the sixteenth consecutive year the Auditor General's report has issued an unmodified opinion of the Government of Canada's consolidated financial statements. That's something I think we should all be very proud of.
You mentioned it briefly in your opening comments, but could you just comment on what a clean audit means for Canada?