Public Accounts committee  Again, there is no magic formula for that.

Public Accounts committee  I think I cannot comment further on that question. My job is to make sure that it's reported.

Public Accounts committee  There are different ways. For the roles of the various players, you have internal controls. Internal control is the job of the deputy heads, but also of all the senior management executives in a department, to make sure you have good internal controls. The CFO will make sure a de

Public Accounts committee  My apologies; I should have said that my role with the internal audit, speaking to Mr. Williams' point, is.... We have decentralized internal audit, so there's an internal audit in every department. All the larger departments have the capacity for internal audit. I'm responsible

Public Accounts committee  I have one of those relationships that are dual. As a deputy head I report to the president, and on the machinery I also report to the secretary. By the Financial Administration Act I'm designated as a deputy head, so I can and do report to the president, but on the machinery, I

Public Accounts committee  The secretary reports to the president. I also report to the president—

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Of course. The most important value added by a strong internal audit function is to provide the assurance to management and to stakeholders that proper controls are in place. The second most important is occurs when we have some weaknesses or some risks to address. That's the

Public Accounts committee  This particular transaction that you refer to was approved by cabinet in the normal course of events. What's important from an internal audit perspective or from a control perspective is that if it's sole source, it has to be disclosed as sole source, so that management can then

Public Accounts committee  Let me say on this issue that we also have to reconcile two aspects. We want deputy heads to be accountable. These are their financial statements; we also have to respect that we want them to be accountable for their statements. So it's difficult to say that somebody else will be

Public Accounts committee  At the moment, it's clearly the deputy head. These are the statements of the deputy head.

Public Accounts committee  Well, the legislation would not change that, because the deputy head is responsible, unless the roles and responsibilities are changed to reflect what the protocol is to deal with those kinds of issues.

Public Accounts committee  But the recommendation is well taken. That might be one of the changes we need to reflect the reality and the wishes of Parliament. For those particular circumstances, we'll review this to see what the president and the Prime Minister and the PCO....

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, sir, for the question. I have two hats. One is financial management; the other one is internal audit. Making sure that the real risks, the most important risks, are audited comes under my internal audit hat. Concerning the contract situation, we ask what

Public Accounts committee  To respond to that, as you know, the accounting standards evolve quite radically. They're still going to evolve pretty radically in the next few years. The private sector in Canada will be adopting the IFRS, which is the international financial reporting standard, in 2011. It is