I think every year, if you look at what we spend, it's a little different in terms of our funding increases, economic increases to employees and so on. What I would offer up is that we are part of the federal government. We seek funding as any other department does. We provide our annual budget to the Department of Finance, because that's the department my office reports through. This is why, as you may recall, that when I was initially appointed, I was seeking more funding, and we received the funding I was looking for.
I also mentioned at the time that once everything settled, I thought it was time to continue the quest for an independent funding mechanism for my office. I think all agents of Parliament should have independent funding mechanisms. It would ensure that we aren't turning to departments that we audit in order to receive the funding we need. An independent funding mechanism would include an accountability mechanism that might be played out right here by the public accounts committee, if they would like. Other countries have agents of Parliament that are funded independently. Here in Canada, some of the newer agents of Parliament that were established more recently, like the Parliamentary Budget Officer, have an independent funding mechanism outside of the core public service.
We haven't had issues with our funding, since we received additional funding in 2021, but that could always be an issue going forward. We are in the mix with all the other departments across the core.