Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be just reiterating what my colleague has said. The relationship with the Auditor General has been very professional. We very much appreciate that. We don't always agree on everything, but we always have a very professional and I think good approach to trying to resolve things.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Public Accounts committee  I hope you don't feel I'm not being direct, but that really is a policy question for the ministers to decide, and I don't feel it would be right for me to comment on it.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I think this is a really good thing, and I have to give the credit to my predecessor, Charles-Antoine St-Jean, who some of the individuals here--Mr. Murphy, Mr. Christopherson--would have seen at committee. He started the policy of having chief financial officers. We've always had the senior financial person, but we started off with this policy of having very strong qualifications, requirements around experience, education, and so forth.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, that's correct.

Public Accounts committee  The way I usually try to explain it is by saying that an accrual basis looks at what you use. Economists would use a fancier word--they would say something like “consumption”--but it looks at what you use. For example, if you have $10 and you go out and buy something that's worth $10, whether it's sitting there in cash in front of you or whether you have this book, you still have something of value that's worth $10.

Public Accounts committee  Mrs. Crombie, I think I know the answer, but I don't want to say something and be wrong. I know there always used to be this prudence reserve that was set aside. Unless Cheryl can talk right off the top with an answer to that, I would want to get the finance department to confirm that.

Public Accounts committee  I'm going a little bit off the top of my head right now, thinking about other information I've seen from other countries, but I believe that other countries are kind of in the ball park. I would want to just have my folks check to make sure I haven't said anything that's wrong here, but I think that having the majority come from personal taxes in today's world—and Mr.

Public Accounts committee  That's a very good question. In fact at one time there was a thought that maybe we could actually have the statements done in three months, in which case they would be done in June. And of course they have to be tabled in Parliament, so you either make it before the summer recess or if you don't hit that deadline you're basically into September.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. The inclusion of the section on the expenses of ministers' offices is a new one. It was a result of the Federal Accountability Act. It's new this year. It does reflect increased accountability and transparency, of course, for those budgets. Those budgets are established according to policies set by Treasury Board.

Public Accounts committee  There are some jurisdictions that have decided not to do accrual budgeting and accrual appropriations. I'd ask my colleagues to jump in here and help jog my memory. For example, France, I believe, has decided not to do the accrual budgeting and appropriations. I'm not aware that anybody has actually gone that way and reversed.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not aware of it, although Australia seems maybe to be thinking about it.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure it's a trend. And don't get me wrong; I think there are some very important management things that accrual appropriations do that are right. I just think there might be another way to get there that's easier to do, without going down that route.

Public Accounts committee  Right now we have about 30 audit committees up and running. It's just the big departments that have them. I think we're shooting for 46, and they're supposed to have them in place in the next couple of months. The latest report I have had is that by the end of March we will have 42 out of 46, or something like that.

Public Accounts committee  A lot of it is just matching, getting the right people. These are people external to the government—