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Interim AG Sylvain Ricard had told the committee in May his office had “no choice” but to cut five planned audits for the current year, including reviews of the government’s performance on cyber crime and Arctic sovereignty. He and others returned to the committee on Thursday morning for a meeting entirely focused on the office’s budget request. “Ultimately those audits are directly linked to impact on Canadians,” he said.

“Government expenditures are increasing, which amplifies the challenges we are facing,” Ricard added. Deputy auditor general Andrew Hayes noted total expenditures were around $253 billion in 2015, and will have gone up to $329 billion in 2020. “So for us to look at all of that extra money that’s being spent, that is being spent using taxpayers’ dollars, that matters,” Hayes said. Figuring out what performance audits to drop “aren’t easy decisions.”

Nicholas Leswick, the assistant deputy minister at Finance Canada’s economic and fiscal policy branch, explained that although agents of Parliament are functionally independent, for the sake of budgeting they are treated as government departments, and requests for funding “must be supported by a business case.” He noted in the 2018 budget, the office had been offered a funding increase of $41 million spread out over five years. “They weren’t stonewalled, they didn’t receive nothing,” he said, adding, “I understand there’s a gap.”

After the meeting, the committee’s Liberal vice-chair Alexandra Mendes told the National Post the AG’s staff had made a “logical and well-explained business case” for why the additional funding is necessary. “I hope that will convince the minister of finance that there may be a case right now to overrule that position,” she said.