National Defence committee  Managing developmental projects is complex, as I previously said, and it requires a great deal of attention on the part of both the department and the manufacturer. I think in most cases involving developmental projects, National Defence pulls together a team and asks the team to concentrate on that particular project.

National Defence committee  I think management attention, careful monitoring, staying on top of the manufacturer, identifying key timelines for deliverables, and also including, as we have noted in this chapter, the in-service support contracting framework and OWSM. Performance incentives and penalty clauses are important elements as well.

National Defence committee  Absolutely. Normally, the policies we've looked at have been those leading up to the acquisition during the actual production of the helicopters in this case or of any developmental equipment. I think it's important and I think policies suggest that program management principles be applied, which means constantly going back over the project charter, the risks, and making sure they are current and the department is addressing them.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for this opportunity to discuss our findings from a recent audit that looked at how National Defence manages the maintenance and repair of its military equipment. Joining me at the table are Pierre Fréchette and Mathieu Tremblay, two audit project leaders who worked with me on this audit.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I'm not really in a position to be able to answer the question because we've not actually audited the action plan. We have a copy of the action plan, which we appreciate receiving, but.... audit, I am not able to comment.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, as the chief of military personnel has pointed out, there are ongoing discussions with our office as to when we will be conducting the next financial audit.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I would defer to the CMP.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, that's correct. I would also add the following points, though. The financial audit found deficiencies in the internal controls, both manual and automated, over transactions. There was a lack of data. There were high error rates, inappropriate segregation of accounting processes, and a lack of quality assurance for financial statements.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, the information we have is that it takes between 80 and 100 hours to process these buybacks, in part due to the issue with respect to the records, which prior to 1999 were in hard copy, and which are very hard to retrieve or may not exist, resulting in the fact that National Defence has to use other records in order to make the determination.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, maybe I could ask our colleagues from the department to answer that specific question.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, certainly the introduction of a new pension plan requires a great deal of work. It's a complex undertaking, and if one hasn't done it before then, yes, it is going to be more difficult to do. However, what we found was that the reserve force pension plan was introduced without coordinating regulation and policy development with the coming into force of the plan's operation.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I would like to note for the committee that at no point in our audit do we suggest that the department should have waited to introduce the reserve force pension plan. The observation we have with respect to planning is that from our perspective, from what we saw when we reviewed the files, it seemed to us that the planning for the implementation of the plan could have started a lot earlier and could have been coordinated with the development of the policies and the regulations.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is really no need to apologize. Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to meet with your committee today to discuss chapter 3 of the Auditor General's spring 2011 report about the reserve force pension plan at National Defence. With me today is Tom Wileman, principal.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, in exhibit 6.6, what you see set out here is the division of costs related to the Chinook helicopter, divided into parts. The first part relates to the capital costs related to the helicopter. You can see that in terms of the capital costs for the acquisition of the helicopter, between the preliminary project approval in June 2006 and the effective project approval in 2009, there was an increase from $2 billion to approximately $2.3 billion.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I would echo the comments of the B.C. Auditor General. I would just bring to the committee's attention one particular community that we had a chance to visit in Alberta. They had taken on the responsibility for adoptions, which is not often a responsibility that is taken on by the first nations child and family service agencies.