I now call the meeting to order, dear colleagues. Good morning.
This is meeting number nine of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Tuesday, April 19, 2016.
I remind everyone that we are televised today, so we should take our cellphones and put them on silent mode or shut them off.
Today we are continuing our consideration of the fall 2015 reports of the Auditor General of Canada. We are studying “Report 1—Implementing Gender-Based Analysis”.
We have two groups of witnesses, a full house today. The first group will have up to seven minutes to provide us with opening statements and answer the questions from the members of Parliament on our committee.
The second group of witnesses are also here. They're sitting in some of the chairs just in behind our witnesses, and they're also available to answer questions should you have any.
I'll take a moment to introduce all of our witnesses. From the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, we have Richard Domingue; from the Privy Council Office, we have Les Linklater, deputy secretary to the cabinet, operations; from the Treasury Board Secretariat, we have Renée LaFontaine, assistant secretary, corporate services and chief financial officer from the amended section; and from Status of Women Canada, we have Meena Ballantyne, head of the agency.
The witnesses available for questioning are the following: Department of Industry, Mitch Davies, assistant deputy minister, strategic policy sector; Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Nicole Kennedy, director general, strategic policy, cabinet and parliamentary affairs; Department of Employment and Social Development, Jacques Paquette, senior assistant deputy minister, strategic and service policy branch; and from the Department of Natural Resources, Neil Bouwer, assistant deputy minister, science and policy integration.
I welcome you all here this morning. Most of you, maybe, have already appeared before committee.
We'll begin with the Office of the Auditor General.
Richard Domingue from the Office of the Auditor General, please begin.