In our organization the Internal Auditor (V.-P. Internal Audit) reports to the Treasurer, who reports to reports to an SVP Finance, who reports to the CFO, who reports to the CEO. The Internal Auditor also reports directly to the Audit and Risk Management Committee. The Internal Auditor attends all Audit committee meetings from beginning to end, tables an internal audit plan annually, tables a risk identification, mitigation and management plan annually, tables an internal audit status report at each quarterly meeting, and the committee regularly holds in camera sessions with the Internal Auditor alone. The Internal Auditor also reports to the full Board twice a year, once to review global enterprise risk identification, mitigation and management, and once to provide a status report on the internal audit function. The relationship between the Internal Auditor and the Audit and Risk Management Committee is set out in the mandate of the Audit and Risk Management Committee.

Our treasurer, as noted above, reports to the SVP Finance, who reports to the CEO, who reports to the CEO. The treasurer also attends Audit committee meetings from beginning to end, tables a treasury department status report at each quarterly meeting (status of credit facilities, FX hedging and derivatives, use of cash, etc.)

There are no independence issues with the treasurer, but there are with the Internal Auditor. So the relationship between the treasurer and the audit committee is one of convenience and efficiency. The CFO could easily cover all finance and reporting bases, assuming it was humanly possible, and assuming that the audit committee was otherwise comfortable not getting to know the treasurer. To a lesser degree, the same could be said of the controller, although the absence of the controller at the meeting would raise more concerns than the absence of the treasurer. It would not be unusual for the treasurer to attend only those meetings at which there was special treasury business on the agenda (credit facility renewal, for instance).

The Internal Auditor is a more special case. Securities rules in Canada and the US mandate a relationship between the Audit Committee and the Internal Auditor and for that reason the relationship is much more than a matter of expediency and efficiency.