Good morning. This is meeting number 17 of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Thursday, June 2, 2016.
Today we're conducting a hearing on Report 2 of the Spring 2016 reports of the Auditor General of Canada, entitled “Detecting and Preventing Fraud in the Citizenship Program”.
We have with us today from the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, Anita Biguzs, deputy minister; and Robert Orr, assistant deputy minister of operations. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Brendan Heffernan, director general, Canadian criminal real time identification services; and Jamie Solesme, officer in charge, federal coordination center, Canada-U.S. From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Denis Vinette, acting associate vice-president, operations branch. Finally, from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, we are honoured to have with us Mr. Michael Ferguson, our Auditor General of Canada; and Nicholas Swales, principal.
We will have an opening statement from each of our four witnesses. I will now ask Mr. Ferguson, the Auditor General of Canada, to proceed first.