General Information on the Public Accounts of Canada

The Public Accounts of Canada is the report of the Government of Canada prepared annually by the Receiver General, as required by section 64 of the Financial Administration Act. It covers the fiscal year of the Government, which ends on March 31.

The information contained in the report originates from two sources of data:

• the summarized financial transactions presented in the Accounts of Canada, maintained by the Receiver General; and
• the detailed records, maintained by departments and agencies.

Each department and agency is responsible for reconciling its accounts to the control accounts of the Receiver General, and for maintaining detailed records of the transactions in their accounts.

The Public Accounts of Canada is produced in three volumes:

• Volume I presents the financial statements of Canada on which the Auditor General has expressed an opinion and provided her observations; a discussion and analysis of the financial statements and a ten-year comparison of financial information; analyses of revenues and expenses, and of asset and liability accounts; and various other statements.
• Volume II presents the financial operations of the Government, segregated by ministry and is designed to reflect as closely as possible the form and content of Part II of the Main Estimates.
• Volume III presents additional information and analyses. Its content is summarized as follows:
  • financial statements of revolving funds (Section 1)
  • supplementary information required by the Financial Administration Act (Section 2)
  • professional and special services (Section 3)
  • acquisition of land, buildings and works (Section 4)
  • acquisition of machinery and equipment (Section 5)
  • transfer payments (Section 6)
  • public debt charges (Section 7)
  • payments of claims against the Crown, ex gratia payments and court awards (Section 8)
  • federal-provincial shared-cost programs (Section 9)
  • other Government-wide information (Section 10)
  • other miscellaneous information (Section 11)

Additional unpublished detailed information relating to Sections 3, 4 and 6 of Volume III of the Public Accounts of Canada 2009 is available online only.