Public Accounts committee  Basically we have assurance standards as well. They're not dissimilar to the ones Canada uses. The international accounting standards are also quite similar. We will be using the Canadian auditing standards, because the audits are being done under those standards. Equally we'll b

Public Accounts committee  No, I should explain that. As I mentioned, we have been here a couple of times before. That allowed us to do the planning and the groundwork for the peer review. The second time around, it allowed the team to get a very good understanding of the OAG's work, how it undertakes it

Public Accounts committee  Hypothetically, I would say that for us as auditors, the crucial thing is to have the evidence to support the findings, the conclusions, and the recommendations. If you do not have that evidence and if the audit has not been undertaken in accordance with the auditing standards, t

Public Accounts committee  We would raise the matter with the Office of the Auditor General. I can only assume--and as this is hypothetical, I will--that the way it would need to be addressed is that the office would look at that particular audit, and if there were a need to do another one or to redo some

Public Accounts committee  Could I please actually explain to you so that I can give you some level of comfort about the opening statements? I arrived here on Monday morning. The Auditor General's opening statement was already prepared. It was just coincidence, I have to tell you, that the word “comprehen

Public Accounts committee  So all I can do is assure you that we do bring a level of independence that is recognized and respected by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I have.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's important to point out that the budget really covers our travel costs, our own salaries, and the time we spend on the peer review is actually borne out by our own audit offices around the world.

Public Accounts committee  When we do our peer review of the various audits that have been done, we will be looking to see, for example, that the evidence that has been collected supports the findings, the conclusions, and the recommendations of that particular audit. If that evidence is not available, or

Public Accounts committee  We will not be benchmarking your audit system or quality management systems as they are against other countries, because, as the Auditor General herself pointed out, there are very different standards applied. What we will be looking at is whether the systems that are in place su

Public Accounts committee  In terms of looking at this peer review, I think it's important to note that the previous peer reviews did not cover all the areas that we are looking at. They really only covered elements. The 1991 review looked at the financial audit. The 2003 one looked at the performance audi

Public Accounts committee  From our perspective, the peer review covers all the practice lines. It also covers what we have called the key support areas. With that, we haven't covered all the human resource management areas. We have looked at the ones that we considered to be important. Examples are the re

Public Accounts committee  They are actually using what are called the general standards of quality control for firms performing audit. Those are the Canadian auditing standards.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much. I won't bother to read out our opening statement. I'll just go through what our presentation is. As you're aware, and I'm sure your Parliament is no different to ours, members of Parliament and the public look to the Auditor General of Canada for independen