Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the Public Accounts of Canada for 2015-16.
The Public Accounts include the audited consolidated financial statements for the 2015-16 fiscal year, which ended on March 31, 2016, in addition to other unaudited financial information. They are part of a series of reports to Parliament and Canadians on the state of the government's finances.
I'm pleased to note that for the 18th consecutive year the Auditor General has issued an unmodified or clean audit opinion of these financial statements. This demonstrates once again the high quality and accuracy of Canada's financial reporting.
A great deal of work goes into these financial statements, which are prepared under the joint direction of the Minister of Finance, the President of the Treasury Board, and the Receiver General for Canada. I would like to recognize the excellent work of the financial community across the Government of Canada. Its members are responsible for maintaining detailed records of the transactions in their departmental accounts and strong internal controls. They, therefore, deserve much of the credit for the fact that the government's consolidated financial statements are consistently presented fairly every year.
I would also like to thank the Office of the Auditor General for their continued co-operation and assistance.
I would now like to spend a few minutes walking the committee through a short deck that provides an overview of the Public Accounts. If you prefer, we can simply table the deck for your consideration and go straight to questions, but I think you previously said I could take a few minutes to make this presentation.
For the Public Accounts of Canada 2016, you have paper copies and there are also copies on the screen. For those of you looking at the screen, you may notice that the word “protected” shows up in the top corner. That's because that information was protected until the public accounts became public. It is no longer protected, so those of you with security minds can put your minds at ease on that front. We're all good there.
We are going to go through the slide deck, but it's not my intent to spend time on every page. I will hit the highlights and really pay attention to some of the changes in the results of the financial statements versus the budgets, and also those of the previous year.
Public Accounts of Canada has three volumes. Volume I is the audited financial statements, which the Auditor General has already mentioned, supplemented by some unaudited information. In volume II, we get into the details of each department and each ministry's revenue and expenses, their use of authorities, and what they spent and lapsed, if you're interested in that. Volume III contains information that is either required by the Financial Administration Act or just because of past practice has become normal for us to make public. I will mention that volume III is bigger than what any province would produce on its own financial statements.
The key thing about the financial statements or the Public Accounts of Canada is that they look backward. We are dealing here with the year April 1, 2015, up until March 31, 2016. The Auditor General has already mentioned the importance of studying the public accounts while they're still current, but let's keep in mind that this information is already over six months old, so it is a backward-looking document.
One of the things that I suggest you look at when you study the Public Accounts of Canada is the results of the actual year against the budget, and also against the previous fiscal year. It's a good way to find out what's changed. I'll just highlight a few things for you.
If you look at the total revenues, the budget for 2015—and we do publish the original budget here—had revenues of $290 billion. Actual revenues came in above that. If you looked at the actual for the previous year, they were at $282 billion. If you're interested in knowing why that is, I and my colleagues from the Department of Finance would be happy to talk about that.
Some other things to highlight for you include program expenses. The budget was $263 billion, but they came in at $270 billion. There are a few reasons for that, and again we'd be happy to get into those details but they relate to employment insurance, some fiscal transfers to Alberta and to Newfoundland, as well as some of the changes or impacts on our longer-term liabilities and related expenses having to do with pensions. The Auditor General has already mentioned some work we plan to undertake on discount rates.