Mr. Chair, first of all, let me just say that I regret the fact that the committee did not find our responses sufficiently detailed, and I hope that our presence today will allow us to provide the additional information you require. I would like to assure you that we have taken the report of the Auditor General and the committee very seriously, and we have implemented all of the items outlined in our management action plan.
Specifically, on recommendation 6, let me provide an update on how the citizenship program integrity framework was established. It was established in accordance with existing departmental frameworks related to fraud, program integrity, and risk management. It was validated by an independent third party familiar with risk frameworks.
We reviewed the citizenship grant program from the perspective of program risks and identified the following four key risks: first, entitlement fraud; second, identity fraud; third, procedural error; and fourth, decision-making error. For each of these factors, we considered the impact and the probability, and how to mitigate each of those risks.
We have also put in place a governance structure as part of the development of the framework, whereby there is oversight by the deputy minister and a three-year work plan, which is approved annually in order to ensure the implementation of the framework that has been developed.