Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Laforest.
With respect to the interaction between internal auditing and external auditing, there are two audiences.
External auditing by Ms. Fraser's Office of the Auditor General provides assurance to Parliament about the reliability of the results.
Internal auditing is a management instrument, as Ms. Fraser herself has mentioned on a number of occasions. She provides assurance to the deputy minister and to the Treasury Board Secretariat that there is reasonable control under the circumstances over the management of public property and resources.
With respect to reasonable assurance or level of assurance, one can never do 100% audit. The fact is that there will never be enough money to do so. As Ms. Fraser explained the other day, when she conducts her external audit, there are always concepts involving relative importance, called materiality. Thus if problems arise, it needs to be determined whether they are significant. If minor problems are identified, then of course we deal with these as well.
However, what is important for senior management and for you too, is to know whether there are any major problems. What you want is for the internal audit instruments to bring out such problems.
When we have completed the updating of internal auditing, which will take another few years, we will then be able to provide the president of the Treasury Board with assurance within the government as to the quality of internal controls government-wide. These documents will also be made public. We have not yet got there, but we are headed in that direction.