Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, the change was made pursuant to a change or a new accounting standard issued by the Public Sector Accounting Board. The Public Sector Accounting Board is an independent standard-setter for governments in Canada. The stated accounting policies of the federal government

Public Accounts committee  To our knowledge—

Public Accounts committee  We're working on it. At the moment, it goes back to a previous year. I'm afraid we don't have that one at our fingertips, but we'll be happy to track it down.

Public Accounts committee  Yes. If I understand the question, we did mention there were a couple of accounting policy changes that resulted in adjustments to prior figures. I think the member may be seeing the impacts of those.

Public Accounts committee  I'll be one second, please.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry. Would it be possible for us to do a follow-up and respond to that? We're having a little difficulty following the numbers.

Public Accounts committee  I think this is probably a question that should be addressed to the Department of Finance. I'll just point out that our involvement, as has been outlined so far, is to really look at the actual results. The notion of comparisons of budget to actuals are best addressed by the Depa

Public Accounts committee  I would think that would be better.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I think perhaps we could invite our colleagues from the Department of Finance to comment on that.

Public Accounts committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you very much for the invitation to appear before this committee to discuss the Public Accounts of Canada. I am pleased to be here in my role as Comptroller General of Canada. With me are two members of my staff, Mr.

Public Accounts committee  My point is just that the question you're addressing is not something that is dealt with in the context of accrual accounting. That has a different purpose. That's what I'm saying.

Public Accounts committee  The outcome of public accounts, I would say, is the key financial accountability document of the Government of Canada, and for that reason it needs to be comprehensive, reliable, and of high quality. I kind of summarized earlier some of the many players that are involved. Obviou

Public Accounts committee  Fundamentally, accrual accounting is about assigning costs to the proper time period, and again I use the earlier example of a capital asset. As an example, you purchase it in year one, but you use it over 10 years. Under cash accounting, the cost would be recorded in the first y

Public Accounts committee  Yes. If we can't do it in 10 days, we'll give you a revised estimate of when we can.

Public Accounts committee  I think that's a safe commitment, yes.