Public Accounts committee  Well, I'm not sloughing off to anyone. There are many spending decisions made by government every year. If a program is sunsetting, normally the government will review that program. There has to be a decision that we are going to terminate, or we extend. It's often the case that those programs are terminated.

Public Accounts committee  They generally all come in under budget. This is why we are lapsing over $5 billion in spending every year. The consequences of being over budget are not very pleasant, so generally you are at a balance or you're under. I think if you look overall, the lapsed funding is over $5 billion.

Public Accounts committee  This is, again, not necessarily the department. It could be that the government has decided, as opposed to making a decision to cancel the program or to extend the program on an ongoing basis, to extend it for one year. The decision has been made in that case to extend it by one year, and for that reason it could come before supplementary estimates for a couple of years in a row.

Public Accounts committee  We have done a significant amount of comparison with what other countries have done. Often we tend to focus on Commonwealth countries--New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain--because they have a system of government similar to ours. But we also focus on the U.S. model. All those national governments have gone to a system of integrating new spending more with existing spending and with periodic review of existing spending.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. My kids spend all their allowance too. They're in their twenties and still spend their allowance.

Public Accounts committee  Again, what I've noted is that the government still needs to make final decisions on the plan and its details. They are still subject to cabinet review. But once those decisions are made, we would be quite prepared to come back before committee to outline the details. As a comment, I would say this is not easy stuff.

Public Accounts committee  I would just comment on that. The government has made significant amendments to the whistle-blower legislation, which will be coming into force in the near future.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. We would expect the new system to examine these programs on a more regular basis. So if there seem to be specific problems, part of that review would be a detailed review of those programs on a periodic basis to uncover those particular problems as they arise, as opposed to doing so after the fact.

Public Accounts committee  Those are good questions. I'll ask Mr. Moloney to respond to them.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry, I'm not aware of the details of that particular announcement. We'd have to get back to you on that.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry if I've misled members. What I said was that what we are looking at is what does the accounting officer model mean—not so much the protocol, but when you look at the legislation, how do you interpret that legislation, the Federal Accountability Act, when it comes to the accounting officer?

Public Accounts committee  I've had some discussions with Mr. Franks, and I know that this committee is working to develop that protocol. We thank the committee for working this through. Because deputy ministers are now accounting officers under the legislation, it is critical that we get this right. As a result of that, based on the Federal Accountability Act, I've had discussions with the president, who's having discussions with his cabinet colleagues on the government's view of the accounting officer model and how it would work.

Public Accounts committee  I wasn't aware of your timing, so I will take that back and I will advise the president accordingly, and hopefully we can be back to you prior to that period of time.

Public Accounts committee  There are different ways to look at sanctions. They can be institutional--how do departments comply with our policies and what occurs when they don't—versus individual sanctions, what happens if there is a wrongdoing by an individual. Under the FAA, I think it's quite fair to say that we have all the tools at our disposal in terms of dealing with discipline, and the appropriate sanctions, from having a written reprimand to actual outright dismissal.

Public Accounts committee  I agree with the Auditor General that new spending is not necessarily aligned with existing spending when new spending proposals come forward. There is also a need to put a system in place that systematically reviews existing spending each year. I don't think it's possible to review all existing spending every year.