Good afternoon, committee and honoured guests.
This is meeting number 116 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Wednesday, October 31, 2018. We are here today in consideration of the public accounts of Canada 2018.
I would remind all who are here at the committee, in the audience and around the table, that we are televised today. Please, if you have a phone or a communication device of any kind, turn it to mute or vibrate or something that's less of a distraction.
The mandate of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is to review and report on the public accounts of Canada and all reports of the Auditor General of Canada. For those who may be watching, and for those here, probably 95% or 98% of the time we are reviewing our Auditor General's reports and conducting studies in regard to them, but the other part of our mandate is to review the public accounts. That's what we're here to do today.
We are pleased to have with us a number of witnesses.
From the Office of the Auditor General, we have Mr. Michael Ferguson, Auditor General of Canada, as well as Ms. Karen Hogan, principal, and Ms. Renée Pichard, principal.
From the Department of Finance, we have Mr. Paul Rochon, deputy minister, and Mr. Bradley Recker, director general, fiscal policy.
Lastly, from the Treasury Board Secretariat, we have Mr. Roch Huppé, comptroller general of Canada; Ms. Janique Caron, assistant comptroller general, financial management sector; and Ms. Diane Peressini, executive director, government accounting policy and reporting, office of the comptroller general of Canada.
Welcome to all.
We have two presentations, I believe. We'll begin with Mr. Ferguson, please.