Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon to the members today. I just want to provide some context. If we don't have the action plan, and we've asked the chair to maybe.... We'll have to discuss this at a future meeting. Without the deadlines within the action plan, we would need further guidance from the committee on how to determine when we can expect certain deliverables in our recommendation.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, I think the clerk might be in a better position to speak about the specifics of their protocol and what they're required to....

Public Accounts committee  I think you're better than me at this, Angela.

Public Accounts committee  Madam Chair, to maybe support the committee's wish, given that the DM has said that they're still in the process.... We want to respect that this will be a surprise. However, they were required to provide it to us 48 hours prior to today's meeting, per the motion. I wanted to start with a discussion point, if the committee would agree.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. We have budgeted time to.... André can add to this, but we, the analysts, together with the clerk, have budgeted enough time to study the nine reports and will very likely have nine draft reports—at least eight, but possibly nine draft reports—ready by the middle to the end of June, meaning having all of the hearings held, translations done, notes taken, etc., and ready with draft reports for approval by the committee.

Public Accounts committee  Pardon me, Madam Chair and Mr. Longfield. I guess I wasn't clear. No, it would not be all nine at once. We plan on doing a couple in about a month or so, and then there will be more hearings. It's like a daisy chain of hearings, draft reports, hearings and draft reports. It's like that.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. To the member's question, as the chair cited, we had a chair's meeting last week and we talked about some of the scenarios. The issue is that we have the nine reports that have been tabled recently, and then the Auditor General will be tabling two more. Do we want to, for example, study all 11 reports, which would mean that we would not be able to do draft reports for all of them in this current session by the end of June?

Public Accounts committee  I agree with the clerk. One hour, which will essentially be about the way in which to question witnesses and analyze the Auditor General's reports, will be sufficient for that kind of work. Another hour will be for you to study the public accounts, once they are tabled in the House of Commons I wanted to support Angela's analysis on that one hour.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. We will be providing a proper agenda of past meetings, but perhaps I could take just 30 seconds here. It's a typical conference. It's three nights and two to two and a half days long. There is an opening cocktail reception and usually a plenary. The bulk of things will take place on the second day.

Public Accounts committee  I'll speak in English for technical reasons right now. When we have a meeting of the public accounts committee, it has been the practice in recent years to have it divided into two one-hour sessions. During first hour, in addition to staff from the OAG who provide an audit opinion of the public accounts, we also include the people at the Office of the Comptroller General who help prepare them.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, everybody. I'm Dillan Theckedath. Mr. Leonard and I are the two analysts assigned to the committee. I'd like to say something about the steps to follow when it comes to inviting the Auditor General and the people who work in the public accounts area.