Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Well, I hope I'm being helpful with that explanation of how the system works.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  If there's an election, what happens is this. Let's say the supply wasn't passed, and this Friday there's the main supply, which I think is just under $60 billion, about $59 billion. Then there's also the supplementary estimates, which are about $5 billion. So that will be voted on this Friday.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I'd want to say, and I think I've said this before, is that this committee is really important in terms of accountability, and I think my job as a public servant is to support that and to answer as best I can. I hope we've done that, and I look forward to supporting the committee in the future on any issues you may have.

Public Accounts committee  If I may, I'll also add something. Correct me if I don't have this right, but my understanding is that this database shows all the expenditures, and I don't believe it actually shows the amount of the vote. So to figure out how much is lapsed, you need to know the difference between the two.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, but even that.... I don't think it's recording the vote amount, so that database itself won't give you the amount of the lapses.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  If I could just make a clarification, when money lapses in the 2008-09 year, you can't actually use that in a following year. So in other words--

Public Accounts committee  The fiscal group at the Department of Finance actually does look at the overall requirements of government from the point of view of figuring out how much the government needs to borrow. They do look at the overall lapse situation and spending information. These are the folks who do the Fiscal Monitor, so they do have information on that and they do some tracking of that.

Public Accounts committee  The prime mandate of the Comptroller General is to make sure the people in the departments do things properly. In other words, because the government is so big and you've got 150 organizations consolidated in the public accounts, you want to make sure the chief financial officer and the audit executive in each one of those organizations are doing their jobs right and making sure the right safeguards are in place.

Public Accounts committee  I have to say that in my experience doing a weekly report is almost.... I wouldn't say it's impossible, but when you get into a big organization right across the country, to do something weekly means that you need to have people inputting into the system on a weekly basis. My experience has been that it's not very accurate.

Public Accounts committee  I'm kind of guessing that it would be in the millions of dollars anyway, but I would really need to have a look at it, because there is some infrastructure there now. We do have the Receiver General, and they do data collection at a government-wide level. But to figure out in this particular case how you would change the coding at the government-wide level, fix that up, and do that, I think it would be a pretty significant exercise.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  We will know when the public accounts are done.