Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, all, for being here and for all your work.
Right off the top, I want to give a personal thanks. For a couple of years I've been going on about not being able to find things, because things weren't paginated in a way that made sense, at least to this kid from Hamilton. You fixed it. Anybody can find any page really quickly. I appreciate it. Whoever gets the kudos for that, thank you.
I also want to comment on the 20th clean audit. As you know, members, this is the 14th time that I've had the honour of being here when we received a clean audit. I've always felt that this was a time when somebody who gets absolutely no part of the credit at all, because we've never been government, gives a tip of the hat to the two parties that have governed and that have given us these 20 years of clean audits. It gives Canadians an assurance that a lot of countries would love to have—I can tell you, as I travel the world. That is, nobody is robbing us blind, stealing money from the Canadian treasury and putting it in an offshore account. We have our challenges, but that's not one of them.
Most of that credit goes to the bureaucracy, the civil servants, the staff, who diligently, day in and day out, are so dutiful in terms of their responsibilities. That's the only way this happens. As someone from the so far eternal third party, with a couple of exceptions, I want to express my gratitude to previous governments and, more importantly, to the bureaucracy and the civil servants who gave us this. We should all be proud of this. Thank you.
I just want to mention that I had the same question as my friend Madam Mendès about the $65 billion. I think I got as much of an answer as we're probably going to get here. This is the first time I've been exposed to that as an issue, which is why I think my colleague asked the question. This may be one of those I leave with you, Chair and colleagues. That may be one of the items where we want to do a follow-up hearing resulting from these. I can tell you, since I've been here, that would be a first. That would be a real sign of advancement, that we're really starting to do our job in public accounts. This sounds like something really important, macro. This oversight committee, I think, should be seized with this a little more.
I'm certainly someone who's very good at giving criticism when it's deserved and necessary, but I also want to make sure there's an opportunity for credit. In this case, I want to give a shout-out, first of all, to our whole process—how quickly the discount rate was raised as an issue, seized by this committee, and recommendations were made. The bureaucracy grabbed it and ran with it. I could be wrong, but I think it was a couple of years from identifying the issue to having it resolved. That's impressive. I want to thank those who made that happen and give them credit for giving the respect to the AG's work and to this committee that they deserved.
On the defence committee, you mentioned, AG, that for 15 years there's been a problem with inventory. I've been here for every one of them except one. Finally, we can say they're getting there. To all those deputies, current and past, who have been here, thank you. We're finally getting there. It looks like we're on the right path. We need to stay diligent, though, to make sure that the changes go ahead. This is $6 billion. It's been a 15-year, $6-billion problem. We're finally getting it turned around all to the good.
I won't have time to take the floor again in this round, so I have two questions.
One is about the GM shares, volume three, page 132. It's been in the media. I don't think we've spent time talking about it at this committee. It's just shy of $2.6 billion, and there are a lot of questions around that. I'd like to get some comment on that, both what the problem is and your responses, Auditor General and government.
This is my very last point, Chair, and I appreciate your indulgence.
About three pages in, actually in the front part, Mr. Ferguson, you said this: “In this commentary, we also let parliamentarians know that...many federal organizations have granted access to some of their computer systems to people who do not need access”.
In light of the growing concern about StatsCan and personal information, I thought I would ask you to tease that out a bit and give us some sense of what exactly you're talking about there, Mr. Ferguson.
Thank you, Chair.