Public Accounts committee  Again, that's not something I can speak to specifically. I think the deputy minister has mentioned some of that in the past, but that wasn't critical to the audit we did.

Public Accounts committee  Again, that's something the department would have to tell you. It was not information that we needed to look at to get to our opinions on the audit.

Public Accounts committee  I don't know that, specifically. I think the deputy minister referred to—and you'd have to go back and double check this—the fact that that type of compensation was not given in the year of the launch of Phoenix. I'm only going by memory on that, you'd have to refer back to her t

Public Accounts committee  Yes, you're right.

Public Accounts committee  Once again, it's difficult for me to say whether it was related to the culture or not. Of course, it was rather curious not to find any recommendations for implementing the system. Usually, that is one of the pieces in this type of project. However, I cannot say whether it was s

Public Accounts committee  That's why we presented that finding in the audit. One of the most important aspects of this type of project is to have someone's signature to approve a project like that.

Public Accounts committee  Again, in the course of an audit we have to follow the evidence and the trail. We found that the information about the seriousness of the situation didn't get past the people who were responsible for the project. That's why we also called it a failure of oversight. There was no s

Public Accounts committee  I think it's consistent at least with my observation that in some cases, policy seems to be applied as a way to just say that the policy has been applied; so if the policy's been applied, then they have plausible deniability. If something goes wrong, they can say they followed th

Public Accounts committee  Of course, that was one of the causes. The managers responsible for Phoenix were aware that there were problems and that the project posed great risks. However, we must also take into account why they decided not to mention those risks. Did the culture play a role in the decisio

Public Accounts committee  I certainly would not say that that happens every time. Obviously, though, in the case of Phoenix, in this situation, there was a decision not to bring that information forward, and as we said in the audit, there were very clear signals that Phoenix was not ready to launch, wheth

Public Accounts committee  I'd have to go back to the auditors to figure out exactly who we asked which questions. We certainly were trying to find out what information went forward, and again, we were only able to find that the information that went forward to the deputy minister was very high level, didn

Public Accounts committee  During our audit, we were able, on many occasions, to obtain all the information we needed to provide an opinion on our objective. We discussed all the factors, all the decisions and all the available information with those people. Our practice is to gather all the information an

Public Accounts committee  Again, if you go back to that particular example of the budget compared to what IBM said it would cost to build the system, at that point in time, as I have said a number of times before, it was not just a question of needing to respect the budget; it was also saying that if they

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. As I say, what I was trying to do was to start the conversation, and I think I did that. I appreciate that the committee is picking up on that. I was also quite frankly happy with what the deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada said when it came to

Public Accounts committee  We couldn't find any documentation of the approval to go live with Phoenix.