Public Accounts committee  There are pros and cons to any decision. Indeed, having the ability to file documents when they are ready would perhaps improve the review of a report. However, as you mentioned, there is a whole process when our office files a report. So having too many filings would perhaps be difficult for the government to manage.

Public Accounts committee  Andrew, do you think you could add to that?

Public Accounts committee  We review transfer payments every year as part of the audit of the public accounts of Canada. That said, a study is a little different than an audit. But I did note your suggestion. I don't know what else to say about it.

Public Accounts committee  I might turn to Andrew to add some details, but I think I should be able to answer all of your question. The nature of the breach was that an individual who was an adviser on a financial audit, an academic, released some of the contents of our audit report before it was tabled in the House.

Public Accounts committee  I confess I am not aware of this study; we have so many reports. However, I thank you for bringing this study to my attention. I will look into it. We do try to take stock of several reports. It's not always easy to take stock of certain recommendations. Sometimes it's easier to review measures that are more easily verifiable than some broader action.

Public Accounts committee  That's a great question. I didn't think that was where you were going when you were asking that question. I have a few things on that. You wanted to know how you could help support better. I think when you bring departments and entities in front of you, it's definitely keeping the constant focus on the quality of their data and on the importance of knowing what data they need, how they collect it, store it, retrieve it and use it.

Public Accounts committee  Jerry DeMarco has been with the office, I think it's been, five weeks now. Andrew Hayes, who was the interim commissioner, and I have had many dialogues with him about that. We are focused on building a centre of excellence, but recognize that to some degree we need to mainstream SDGs in our audits to encourage all of government to mainstream them.

Public Accounts committee  I think as we will likely downsize, we'll have to do some reconfiguring; that's for sure. But right now, we've done nothing. We've closed off places actually so that if individuals go in, they can't get access in large numbers.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. Everybody wants to know who audits the auditors. We have a few audits. We have an annual financial audit, like most entities do, which is carried out by an accounting firm that is independent from us, and we rotate firms on an occasional basis. That's the financial side.

Public Accounts committee  —but we are definitely going to start looking not only at how the government considers it—

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. In terms of our recent hiring practices, I want to address two issues. About 44% of the individuals we've hired have self-identified as visible minorities. Also, absolutely GBA+ and SDGs are things that I have tasked one of the assistant auditor generals with making sure are included or considered in every single audit.

Public Accounts committee  Well, we're going to ask for it. I'm not sure we're always going to find it, but we're definitely going to start the dialogue and keep the pressure on the departments that we audit.

Public Accounts committee  When it comes to our physical space, we have not made any changes to our physical space yet. That was at the request of Treasury Board as we all sort out what's going on. We're in an active dialogue with them continuously about what our physical space might look like. What we've communicated to all of our employees is that flexibility is going to be our way forward.

Public Accounts committee  People in our office and people on the committee have already had a discussion about this. We will be looking at the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit, the implementation of immunization, as well as a lot of programs related to the pandemic. We have no shortage of topics.

Public Accounts committee  All we need is time.