Public Accounts committee  On this one, the issue is not material enough when we look at the materiality of the public accounts of the Government of Canada. The Auditor General was making reference to a $1-billion materiality. The asset of that entity is less than that, so it's not material. When we're doi

Public Accounts committee  In terms of the audit of the financial statement, we've got readiness assessment going on right now. The first department, a tier one department, got their audited statement this year for the first time. We'll have some more this year. It's one by one by one. We're going to get t

Public Accounts committee  Well, if I may--

Public Accounts committee  As the Auditor General also has mentioned, she begs to differ with your approach.

Public Accounts committee  I also beg to differ. When we're looking at the Federal Accountability Act and the accounting officer, we want deputy ministers to be accountable and also to have the tools. It's important that we give them the tools to enable them to give you the assurance that they've got thei

Public Accounts committee  I read with great interest the recommendation of the committee on that issue. It gives us the intent of the legislator, and I really appreciate seeing the recommendation. It's going to help us in doing our job. However, as I mentioned in my testimony, I'm also a citizen who must

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the question. As we said, there was a robust discussion. There is never an easy answer to this. I would like to give you a definitive answer that there was a cookbook here that will tell us, you do this, this, this. The Auditor General herself, the other

Public Accounts committee  We're moving along those lines. Some of those indicators of performance will be the audited financial statements. As you know, we have a target for tier one--the top 22 departments--to be audited by March 31, 2009. I'm pretty sure that it's going to be very tough to get there. So

Public Accounts committee  Well, as you know, the policy on internal audit was a good example on the point. We put in the smallest internal audit, to be phased in over three years, because as we were saying before, we can have all the money in the world, but it's a people business. We need to have the righ

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I appreciate that.

Public Accounts committee  Will we be ready when the Federal Accountability Act comes in? We will be ready to start the implementation, sir. I would like to tell you that we have everything done down to the last detail. It will not happen. It's going to take time to bring in the people. We're clarifying al

Public Accounts committee  It is important to remember that leadership must come at several different levels, including the bureaucratic level, to be sure. My role therefore consists of ensuring that there is a community of internal auditors, which needs to be rebuilt and trained, and that there is a need

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Laforest. With respect to the interaction between internal auditing and external auditing, there are two audiences. External auditing by Ms. Fraser's Office of the Auditor General provides assurance to Parliament about the reliability

Public Accounts committee  I would be very happy to be able to tell you today that everything is perfect, and so on. Even when the internal audit system is fully operational—and the woman over there who has done some internal auditing knows it—there will always be the concept of materiality, and there can

Public Accounts committee  If I may, as my colleague explained, the role is in the expenditure management system, which is the actual decisions in terms of where the money will be spent. It's in a big envelope, based on the priorities and so on. That system must rely on a very robust financial management c