Government Operations committee  I tend to agree with the Auditor General of Canada Sheila Fraser's reports on a number of issues that have dealt with this particular issue. In one of her chapters she has the leasing issue, and she sort of indicated that in fact better decisions could have been made if it was on an accrual basis.

Government Operations committee  Absolutely. It's a good question. Budgets are future-oriented information and therefore the basis on which they're prepared is built on what we call assumptions. Depending on those assumptions, you can have some very significant results. I know you have a CMA, and therefore you know that one of the things management uses is the cost analysis--the differences between budget and actual, on a daily basis, to be able to say this didn't go the way we planned, we have to correct it, or we made more or less.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair and members of the committee, on behalf of Canada's chartered accountants, I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to you today on the accrual basis of financial reporting. My name is Ron Salole. I'm the vice-president of standards at the CICA. My colleague, Martha Denning, is a principal with the Public Sector Accounting Board.