Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss chapter 6—

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for this opportunity to discuss chapter 6 of our November 2009 report—Land Management and Environmental Protection on Reserves. I am accompanied by Jerome Berthelette, Assistant Auditor General, and Frank Barrett, Principal. Reserve lands are cen

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have just a few thoughts, very briefly. I think any legislation—and I'm sure Mr. Wernick would agree—would require first nations support and involvement. Legislating in this area is not easy, and that would be one of the things you should look for. Are f

Public Accounts committee  Thank you.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the Australian National Audit Office invited us and representatives from New Zealand to a symposium where we exchanged ideas. I think the three countries and their audit offices are quite different in many respects. I think it was very useful from our

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. No, I wouldn't characterize it as a preoccupation with the legislative base. I think my office feels very strongly that the suite of issues that we've talked about—all four of them—are fundamentally important, need to be addressed, and need to work togethe

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, not being a lawyer I would hesitate to go too far down that road, but it certainly would provide clarity to citizens as to what the government is committed to providing to them, and if they felt they weren't getting that, they could avail themselves of whatever tool

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman, that's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. If I can go back to my analogy about how long is a piece of string, the piece of string is getting longer, and that's a good thing. But how long it should be is the question.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question. The member mentioned jurisdiction, and certainly in Canada the expertise in many of these areas does lie within provincial jurisdictions. However, there is another very, very important jurisdiction, and that's first nations jur

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think I'll let one of the others deal with that.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the question. It is very important, and I would say that when I first started auditing in this area—far too many years ago—the federal government was of the view that it was not really its responsibility but it was helping out where it co

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the question. Yes, I do share your frustration. I've been here many, many times on this issue, and on those issues in different departments. I think the people we deal with in government share that frustration. They may not articulate it in

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman, I believe it is. I know that sometimes they are politically difficult to get to, but you also see them in child and family services as well. So you're beginning to see the emergence of bringing the provinces to the table.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct, Mr. Chairman. We have no information on that. We haven't done any audit work there yet.