Thank you, Chair.
I will start with a couple of things.
The reason I've highlighted this as a theme of concern is that I've been noticing it come up in a number of audits that we've done, and I felt that maybe it hasn't been noticed. Whether at a committee hearing or anywhere else, it hasn't always been noticed, and departments aren't necessarily getting all of the questions about the state of the data that they should be getting, even when we've been highlighting that there have been issues.
The first step was for me to raise it, and I'm encouraged by the fact the committee is understanding the importance of this issue. The first step is that when we bring an audit forward and there is a discussion about the data not being complete or some problems with the data, there will be some pointed questions for the departments about how they're going to fix it.
I think another thing that would be useful for committee members to keep in mind is that sometimes when we go in and look at a system and test it, we can find that maybe the quality of certain data or information is—I'm just going to pick a number—95%. Lots of people will think of 95% as in, “Well, if I got 95% on a test, I'm happy”, but lots of times 95% isn't good enough when you're dealing with collecting data. Make sure when you're seeing results that you don't just take those numbers at face value, and that committee members are thinking about those and perhaps saying, “Okay, well, it looks like a fairly high percentage, but is it good enough?”
The question mentioned the state of the government's financial statements. We've been expressing opinions on financial statements for a number of years. I think it's been 15 or 16 years in a row that the Office of the Auditor General has been able to give a clean audit opinion on the financial statements of the Government of Canada. For 15 years in a row, the government writ large has been able to maintain its financial information in such a way that we can go in, look it, and come out saying that it was appropriately reflected in financial statements—within limits of materiality, of course. It's not as though they've been struggling with that and have only recently done it.
That goes back to my point that we're well beyond the point in time.... Departments should not be having the types of problems with collecting and managing data that we've been seeing in these audits.