Public Accounts committee  Yes, we will.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for that clarification. My comment is that I'd looked back the last probably seven or eight years or so--

Public Accounts committee  I saw it was around 47% over the last seven years.

Public Accounts committee  I think what it shows, looking internationally.... I was talking with my colleagues today and asking about Australia and New Zealand. To my knowledge, there's no other country that has had ten clean audit opinions at the government level. I'll credit my colleagues here. John Mor

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I would also like to respond to that question. You are absolutely correct. To minimize risk, it is a good idea to ask each department to submit a plan for improving its internal control systems. We also try to recover any losses and occasionally, we are successful. Th

Public Accounts committee  Perhaps I can ask one of my colleagues who is more knowledgeable about such matters to answer the question.

Public Accounts committee  I'll be relating some of the methodologies that the Department of Finance uses in their projections. I'm going from the presentations that I've seen the Deputy Minister of Finance provide, and I'm going a little bit from memory here, Chair, but I know they look at various proje

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Members of the committee, please turn to the blue presentation, entitled “Public Accounts of Canada 2007-2008”, and flip to page 2 for the presentation overview. I thought it would be useful to provide you with some information on the process we use around public acco

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We do appreciate the invitation to appear before the committee to discuss the public accounts this afternoon. As you've mentioned, Mr. Chair, I have two members of my staff with me: Mr. John Morgan, the assistant comptroller general, financia

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Bélanger. In terms of role, one of the things the Comptroller General has to do is make sure there are proper financial systems and so forth in place. Looking at costing and at whether or not you're collecting performance data and performance info

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for that question, Mr. Christopherson. I think at some point we may need to look at whether we need more policy here, but my general experience in departments, having been a chief financial officer in a few of them, is that there usually are a number of differences amo

Public Accounts committee  It may be that a guide isn't sufficient. I guess all I can say, Mr. Christopherson, is that at this point my instincts are that the most important thing is actually to work with these people, sit down with them eye to eye.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for your question, sir. I think it's important to contact the largest departments and agencies. In terms of revenues collected, these would be the Canadian Grain Commission, the National Energy Board, Transport Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs, and the Canada Border

Public Accounts committee  Yes. In fact Mr. Rigby and I chatted about this the other day. One of the things we need to look at in terms of our best practices is should we have some sort of a calculation that looks at maybe three years or four years for some of these organizations? You might have some minor

Public Accounts committee  Yes, absolutely. I know there are experts in this room who are more expert on the accounting officer issue than I am, but it seems to me the deputy ministers or the accounting officers have to make sure their departments have the system, and so forth, in place. But the Comptrol