Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I'm pleased to have this opportunity to say a few words about the Public Accounts of Canada.
I will skip introducing my colleagues because you did a wonderful job at it, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the financial management community of the Government of Canada—the Department of Finance, the Receiver General for Canada and the Office of the Auditor General—for helping to prepare the public accounts.
Mr. Chair, the government is committed to being open, transparent and accountable to Canadians and parliamentarians. To that end, the public accounts are part of a series of reports that outline how the government spent the money it requested from Parliament and how it generated revenue.
The public accounts include the government's audited consolidated financial statements and other detailed financial information for the fiscal year ending March 31.
In reporting on how taxpayers' money has been spent, the Public Accounts of Canada provide parliamentarians with information that enables them to understand and evaluate the financial position and operations of the government and to provide effective monitoring.
As an additional monitoring mechanism, the Office of the Auditor General, within the Public Accounts of Canada process, publishes an audit opinion on the government's financial statements and makes observations on the main issues raised in the audit. For the Public Accounts of Canada 2023, which were recently tabled, the Auditor General issued an unmodified or clean audit opinion on the government's consolidated financial statements. This is the 25th year in a row that we have received such an opinion from the Office of the Auditor General, which means that the financial statements were presented faithfully in accordance with accounting principles. I'd like to point out that this is indicative of the high quality of Canada's financial reports and of the work being done by my colleagues in the public service.
Let me now turn to some of the highlights in this year's consolidated financial statement.
Total revenue amounted to $447.8 billion in 2023, which represents an increase of $34.5 billion or 8.4% from 2022. Total expenses amounted to $483.1 billion in 2023, which is down $20.5 billion or 4.1% from 2022. One of the key reasons for the decrease in spending is related to the wind down of temporary COVID support measures.
For the year that ended on March 31, 2023, the government adopted two new accounting standards for asset retirement obligations and financial instruments published by the Public Sector Accounting Board. Of these changes, the new accounting standards will place more of an emphasis on the government's obligations with respect to costs involved in retiring asset and liability derivatives and coming up with a consolidated statement of re‑evaluation gains and losses. Other details about these two changes can be found in note 2 of the consolidated financial statements in section 2 of the Public Accounts of Canada.
I'd like to thank everyone involved in the Government of Canada's financial management, and the Office of the Auditor General, for the successful implementation of these new standards.
The Government of Canada continues to improve public accounts for parliamentarians and Canadians, and we thank the members of the committee for their advice and their unstinting work on the public accounts.
We would now be pleased to answer any of your questions, Mr. Chair.