Public Accounts committee  You're right; I mean, we've asked departments to direct their effort to improving those controls, and the cost that is cited is the value of that effort.

Public Accounts committee  As I have explained in the past, statements were made in the past about taking a particular direction where we're meant to achieve certain goals. We have not altered our goals, we've altered the means. It's a question of choosing the best tool for the job. On retrospect, we decided the best tool for the job was not departmental audits...an automatic audit of all departments, but that the better tool for the job was the disclosures route with the ability to selectively audit.

Public Accounts committee  The current position is in a policy of the Treasury Board. It is a policy that has been established by the Treasury Board ministers.

Public Accounts committee  In 2007, and as early as 2004, there had been public statements made indicating a policy direction, but there had never been a Treasury Board policy, as such, designating the requirement for audits.

Public Accounts committee  So what happened was that when an actual policy decision was made as opposed to these announcements, the policy decision is the one that we've been discussing today--

Public Accounts committee  The Treasury Board.

Public Accounts committee  In May or June of this year.

Public Accounts committee  In a perfect world, it would have always been done. We had the belief that improvements were required, so we put in place these policies to try to cause those improvements to happen, but more importantly to allow us to monitor that they were happening. But on your basic point, yes, that's good housekeeping.

Public Accounts committee  I must confess that I haven't done a survey, but just based on my experiences with the financial audits, typically in the course of an audit the Auditor General folks will issue management letters. Often they will come across transactions or situations that had escaped the attention of management.

Public Accounts committee  No, not at this point in time, and the policy allows me, if I do see something, to request an audit. The audits are selective, not automatic, but were I ever to have a concern, the policy allows me to request an audit.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Wiersema continues to say that readers of departmental financial statements will get assurances from the Auditor General about the improvement in controls. I want to just repeat my statement from the last time, which is that the auditor's standard opinion on financial statements does not give assurance on control.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. As I've mentioned, the original statement from 2004 and the current suite of policies were aimed at the same goal. I've made that point before. So the costs are as relevant, whether we're pursuing improved controls through throwing out the goal of audited financial statements, or whether we are improving controls through the route we've now taken--

Public Accounts committee  What I've said is that it is the same cost, because it's the same activities--

Public Accounts committee  It has cost, because we're doing it. We've started this effort, so costs have been incurred. We're no longer talking about $300 million going forward from today. We're talking about $300 million going forward from the time at which that estimate was prepared. Some of that work has taken place.