Public Accounts committee  Yes, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly, the member is correct. There are dozens if not hundreds of internal audits conducted in government each year. In many cases, we work with those internal auditors. We need that work to help us with our work, but we do not get involved with every single one of those internal audits.

Public Accounts committee  Asking an auditor if more audits are a good thing, Mr. Chairman....

Public Accounts committee  I'll stop there, Mr. Chairman.

Public Accounts committee  It is possible that the government has undertaken an internal audit or its own review of this and has not shared that information with the Office of the Auditor General. We have not specifically posed the question to the government, so that would be a question you'd have to confirm with government officials.

Public Accounts committee  I believe a minister could quite appropriately call for a review or an internal audit of some aspect of his or her department's operations. I do not believe there are any prohibitions on that, nor would it necessarily be inappropriate.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for your question. The question is somewhat hypothetical. I am not aware of any specific rules in government, nor do I believe the government needs any specific rules, that would govern the extent of a minister's involvement in an internal review or an internal audit of the department.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I believe there is an appropriate role, an important role, that officials can play in the administration of programs like this. I wouldn't characterize it as an oversight. I believe the role of the officials is to ensure that transparency and accountability and due diligence exist in the selection of the projects for funding.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have the legislation in front of me, so I am doing this from memory. I believe the Federal Accountability Act provided a basis in legislation for the establishment of internal audit functions in all our departments and agencies, so the requirement for internal audit now exists in federal legislation.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, you did, Mr. Chair.

Public Accounts committee  I'm not aware that an internal audit has taken place of the G-8 legacy infrastructure fund, Mr. Chairman.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, very quickly, I think the member is correct. There are areas in which conditions on reserves are improving, but I would indicate that overall it's getting worse out there. The housing shortage, for example, has increased to 20,000 houses from some 9,000 the last time we audited it.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, I'm not able to comment on when submissions for funding were submitted because I wasn't able to audit the submissions for funding. There's no documentation in the Government of Canada. With respect to the broad question of whether there are discussions of upcoming government programs that may not have yet been officially announced or approved by Parliament, I believe that the legacy fund is probably not unique in that respect, and I believe that discussions take place with stakeholders about the possibility of a program, sometimes before the program has been finalized and goes through Treasury Board approval and the subsequent funding by Parliament.

Public Accounts committee  I believe, as Ms. Loschiuk has indicated, Mr. Chairman, that when we approached the minister's office for documentation we did get copies of the application form. A blank application form didn't help us very much in determining which projects were submitted and how they were selected.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, with respect to the overall planning for the summits, the preparation of budgets, the preparation of detailed plans for those summits, yes, our audit focused on the planning and preparation for the summits. With the exception of the transparency of the request for funding for Parliament and with the exception of the absence of overall review of the overall cost of the summits, the rest of the audit findings are that the government performed well.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, the first comment I would make is that I am not able to shed any light on how the 32 projects were selected because there is no documentation in the Government of Canada to explain clearly how those projects were selected. We don't have a mandate issue here, Mr. Chairman.