Good morning, colleagues.
This is meeting number 137 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts for Tuesday, May 14, 2019. We're here today in consideration of, first, the main estimates 2019-20, vote 1 under the Office of the Auditor General and, second, the report on plans and priorities 2019-20 of the Auditor General of Canada. We also may, if we have time at the end of the meeting, go in camera for 10 or 15 minutes just to discuss a couple of items that have come up.
Before we get into the introductions of all who are here, for those who may be watching or for others who may be in our audience today, the main estimates provide a detailed listing of the resources required by individual departments and agencies for the upcoming fiscal year. They identify the spending authorities, known as votes, and the amounts to be included in subsequent appropriation bills that Parliament will be asked to approve. The House of Commons standing committees may approve, reduce or reject the estimates that are reviewed or referred to them, but one thing that they cannot do is increase them.
Each committee has until May 31 to study them, to vote and to send them back. Otherwise, they are deemed to have been reported. This is what we are doing today. We are hearing the estimates. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts has a role to play on behalf of Parliament and Canadians in holding the Office of the Auditor General to account for its past performance and future plans. As a committee, we have developed a practice of reviewing the Office of the Auditor General's performance report and its departmental plan in conjunction with the main estimates. This one day, we kind of forget the last audit done by the office, and we look more specifically to the Office of the Auditor General itself and to the monies that have been appropriated to it.
We welcome, from the Office of the Auditor General, Mr. Sylvain Ricard, Interim Auditor General of Canada; Andrew Hayes, Deputy Auditor General; Lucie Cardinal, Assistant Auditor General; Ronald Bergin, Principal; and Kimberly Leblanc, Principal.
Welcome here.
We will turn the floor to you, sir.