Government Operations committee  In principle, that $1.7 billion will be part of the estimates that are normally before Parliament in March. The idea is to bring together all these amounts that are normally—now and for a long time now—requested through these Supplementary Estimates. However, our intention is now to request, in a central vote, an amount that will cover the needs of all the departments.

Government Operations committee  Not exactly. That means that the Office of the Comptroller General is trying to reinforce capabilities within the departments. This reinforced capability could meet existing needs. At the same time, it is clear that, as already mentioned in the report, we will need more sophisticated and greater capabilities in general to manage a system based on accrual accounting.

Government Operations committee  That's part of it.

Government Operations committee  It was both.

Government Operations committee  It is possible to develop progress indicators. However, concrete results-based indicators are hard to develop. It is difficult to estimate implications in terms of spent or better managed funds. With the aid of the members, we have more clearly established the strong and weak points, as well as the [Inaudible - Editor] for the departments and parliamentarians.

Government Operations committee  The Office of the Comptroller General is trying to hire other qualified accountants and is conducting this exercise in order to meet the needs of all the departments. So it has developed an action plan which it is currently following.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. The Treasury Board Secretariat is developing models and advice for the president and eventually for Cabinet. As the committee knows, the government has made a commitment to come back to Parliament before the end of this fiscal year with concrete proposals in hand. The President has invited a certain number of members to dialogue with us, the Secretariat's executives.

Government Operations committee  This is a shared responsibility between the expenditure management sector—that is myself, as Assistant Secretary—and one of my counterparts at the Office of the Comptroller General, John Morgan. Mr. Morgan and I manage this work. We've already met with that group of members.

Government Operations committee  The information that we present to Parliament in the main estimates for all of the statutory programs, including the public debt program, is information we get from the Department of Finance. So the statement there is reflected again in the most recent budget, which does show, in terms of the private sector forecast for the economy, a small uptake in interest rates this year.

Government Operations committee  The budgetary main estimates growth is 5.9% in total.

Government Operations committee  It's showing the relationship between two different bases of reporting.

Government Operations committee  I think that summary would be only partially correct, if I understood it myself. The total budgetary main estimate spending as displayed on page 1-5 is in fact a 5.9% increase. It is true that within that there is an operating and capital amount, which is increasing 11.3%. If I understood correctly, that was one of the earlier questions.

Government Operations committee  We're distinguishing between the inflation rate and the rate of growth in the dollar value of the economy, which is inflation plus real growth.

Government Operations committee  What we're referring to there in terms of net adjustment, from net to gross basis, is in fact helping the reader go from the voted spending to the basis of the budget documents, which are in fact on a gross basis. So the overall spending--and in fact, for reference, if members or the committee staff have occasion to look at the latest budget, page 295, the Department of Finance and the Treasury Board Secretariat have arranged that going forward, and this budget was the first example.

Government Operations committee  There's one reporting here in the main estimates and one change.