Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  There are a number of initiatives under way in departments. The Comptroller General, for example, wants to have departments produce audited financial statements by 2009, or at least to start to get there. He is also introducing audit committees that have external representatives.

Finance committee  What I can say is that generally in government there are three agencies that have been created with a different structure, if you will, from government departments. I would say the revenue agency is probably the most different of all. Rather than having a department with a depu

Finance committee  I'll let Mr. Hood answer that.

Finance committee  We should just clarify that the $18 billion are taxes that are not in dispute. There was another $6 billion of taxes that were in dispute.

Finance committee  We were, obviously, in all our audits saying that with the resources that are being given to them, they have to make sure that those resources are targeted at the areas of highest risk, and that they should be able, as well, to know the kind of risk associated with the various ac

Finance committee  As I said, we haven't done an audit yet of human resource management, and I'm not sure that we particularly heard that. We did hear, in one of the concerns that was raised, about the internal transfers of people, so it could be viewed as being non-competitive resourcing. We just

Finance committee  We're certainly, I would say, very favourable to the governance structure that's been put in place. The board of management, the requirements to have audited financial statements, the performance report that they have to produce with an assessment, have certainly brought a lot mo

Finance committee  As far as I know, nothing has changed. So I assume the situation is the same as in 2002.

Finance committee  What we're concerned about is the integrity of the tax base. We recommended that the Department of Finance obtain and analyze information that would enable it to properly assess the impact of tax treaties. We also raised the issue of interest deducted from funds borrowed for inve

Finance committee  Exactly. We indicated that tax arrangements for foreign affiliates had reduced the tax base by hundreds of millions of dollars over the previous 10 years and that the Department of Finance should review the rules governing income and dividends from those affiliates. Be that as

Finance committee  We will eventually follow up on that, but I don't think it's scheduled for next year. I'm told it will be in 2007.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  No. It's really not our role to suggest amendments to the act. We can raise issues that in our view, require further study or analysis, but it would be inappropriate for us to take a position on the act, because that's often a political issue.

Finance committee  We didn't raise many issues with the act. We looked at the treaties and foreign affiliates, but the bulk of our work focuses on the administration and management of programs.