Thank you, Chair.
Auditor General, thank you for your presence again. We appreciate it.
I'd like to talk about this budget business. This is incredibly troubling.
Colleagues will know that traditionally, in the 15 years and five Parliaments that I've been here, at the end of this meeting, the one question the chair always asks of the Auditor General in closing, no matter what has transpired in between, is “Do you have sufficient funding to carry out your mandate?” The answer inevitably is yes. That wasn't always an easy road to get through.
I stand to be corrected, but I do not recall ever having the Auditor General come in and say, “I do not have sufficient funding to do the work I would normally do; therefore, I have to do less.” That's what I'm reading here.
I'm going to quote it again:
Although the 2018 federal budget provided us with some new ongoing funding, we did not get any of the new funding that we requested in the 2019 federal budget. We are continuing to explore our options to ensure we are properly funded and accountable only to Parliament. In the near term, we have no choice but to decrease the number of performance audits that we conduct.
I want to be crystal clear. You put in a request for more funding. It was denied, and as a result, you're going to do fewer audits. Is that correct?