Yes, I do. Thank you very much.
First, let me just start by thanking the Auditor General and his team for a diligent set of seven reports, three special examinations, and the commentary that came out. I want to focus on report number three. It jumped out at me because one of the biggest issues we deal with in the constituency office is immigration casework. I've had constituents come and make suggestions and ask the question, “What if? Does this happen in terms of fairness and the possibility of fraud and corruption?” I read this report with a lot of interest.
I want to frame it this way. The AG could have come and said that department officials and staff hired in local offices are corrupt. I don't believe he said that. He could have said that they can be corrupted, and that is what he did say. Ideally, one day I hope that the AG will come to this table or to a parliamentary committee and be able to say that it's bulletproof, that there cannot be any corruption. But we need to get there.
From the report, it sounds like we need to get there by implementing controls and making sure those controls are monitored. I give the analogy of a bank. If you don't lock up the vault at the end of the night and you disable the security cameras, someone is bound to take the opportunity to take the money and run. To me, the gist of this report is that we have to make sure those controls are in place.
I want to hone in on something the Auditor General said, which is that he found no evidence that the “improper actions” observed during the audit were due to corruption. Can he give some examples of what those “improper actions” are, and whether those actions can be specifically attributed to other causes? Or were there no specific causes that those actions could be attributed to?