Thank you, Chair.
In the first instance, I would say my idea of having a couple of deputy ministers would be to ensure the operationalization of those recommendations of this committee that the government has accepted. In other words, my understanding is that you will make a report to Parliament, and the government will then have to decide whether or not and which components to accept.
I would then say, whatever the government decides on, they would clearly tell the public service, the Clerk and the Treasury Board that we want these things done within the following time frame.
My experience suggests to me that if you just tell all deputy ministers to do this, it doesn't always work evenly, so you appoint an implementation champion. Maybe it's a deputy secretary in PCO—I don't know who it is—and you simply say to them very clearly that they have to establish a time frame for implementing all of these various recommendations. You have to report back to a committee of cabinet and perhaps a committee of Parliament. In doing that, it becomes easier to find out what's going on.
You can insist that the Treasury Board mandate audits. You don't have to have a problem before you mandate an audit. One of your colleagues asked a question about which departments and agencies we should worry about from a security perspective. Why doesn't the Treasury Board do three audits a year just looking at what the DSOs are doing on these departments? That's not punitive. It's preventative.
If they find problems, it's possible to then require the deputy head to do something about it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Auditor General did something like this at some point, as well.