Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Certainly. Yes, we worked closely with our colleagues in British Columbia. Part of the audit planning process we worked together on. We had meetings with them, advisory committee meetings. Whenever we met with first nations organizations in the province of British Columbia, we

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the funding focus is on two areas. One is the range of services that are made available to the people. The new formula is to enrich and expand that range of services. But the funding of the first nations agencies, that hasn't changed, that part of the

Public Accounts committee  Merci. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Let me just be as clear as I can that we don't negotiate our audit reports with the departments that we audit. We go through a rigorous process and an appropriate process and a professional process to show the facts upon which we're basing our concl

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll start off with a disclaimer. I'm not an economist and I won't ever be one--

Public Accounts committee  --and I understand that this stuff is frightfully complex and difficult. Your question is a good one. There were some hard numbers that the government was able to get from some programs in some departments. As to why they didn't go further with this, I think one of the witnesses

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll ask Mr. Stock to give more detail, but I will just say that the projects we audited met the eligibility criteria.

Public Accounts committee  No, we did not.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, I wouldn't say there was no relationship between them. In the first audit, this audit here, we audited the design, the delivery, the launching, and the paving the way to get the programs financed. In the second audit, we will be looking at

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. I agree.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I am not aware of any undertaking that was of this magnitude.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. It was put in place appropriately and it did help expedite the economic action plan.

Public Accounts committee  Merci. Mr. Chairman, the economic action plan was a huge undertaking--$47 billion--and to conduct an audit such as this.... We can't audit everything. It's the same in all of our audits, and in particular in one of this size. On page 28 of our report, we list the programs that w

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I'll ask Mr. Stock to answer that question, please.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, thank you for the opportunity to discuss chapter 1 of our 2010 fall report on Canada's economic action plan. With me today is Gordon Stock, the principal who is responsible for this audit. This audit examined Canada's economic action plan as it was being launched. It

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. On the economic action plan, the need for speed required that the government rely on assumptions at the beginning, so some of those assumptions were around the fact that they would approve projects that were ready to go. So they relied on attestations from