Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, I'll have to take the question on notice. I believe, sir, you said that pertains to the 2007-08 fiscal year. Frankly, I don't have the ability to respond to your question as I sit here. But we will certainly look into it and provide you with a response.

Public Accounts committee  As Admiral Smith alluded to earlier, the original plan was to resume financial audits by the Auditor General at the end of this fiscal year. In discussing the issue with the Office of the Auditor General, as there remains sufficient doubt around the liability associated with the past elections, the conclusion is that an audit at the end of this fiscal year would, in all likelihood, result in a similar outcome—specifically, a denial of opinion.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, with respect to the figures, I can't comment on the RCMP data. I would say that the administrative expenses associated with the reserve force pension plan are in fact a function of the remedial efforts we're making to process this backlog. And when the plan reaches a steady state, when the records are automated, when the reservists are fully into the kind of pension system the RCMP are now—which we're targeting, I believe, to happen by 2015—then you will see this ratio change significantly.

National Defence committee  I would add there is a downside, because sometimes the dollar depreciates against the U.S. dollar. So we bear the downside risk as well.

National Defence committee  As you might expect Mr. Chair, because of our capital acquisitions and the sources of those acquisitions, many of them are foreign. Moreover, because of foreign military arrangements, when we collaborate with allies we have a significant number of transactions every year denominated in U.S. dollars.

National Defence committee  Unfortunately, Mr. Chair, I don't have a copy of the public accounts with me. Off the top of my head, the $10.9 billion does not ring a bell. Our carry forward embedded in the “Lapsed” is actually about $443 million. But I'm sorry, sir, the $10.9 billion just doesn't ring a bell.

National Defence committee  No, $950 million was left.

National Defence committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, I don't think you can judge the performance based on one year's data. Clearly 2010-11 was an anomalous year, and $950 million, a very large number. I've attempted to explain what drove that number. When we look at the seven-year history going back to 2004-05, including the 2010-11 fiscal year, which was anomalous, our total lapse was $1.4 billion on spending authorities of about $118 billion.

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. Mr. Chair, as granting councils the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council provide funding for research deemed worthy in educational institutions across the country. RMC is an accredited university with a robust research capacity, and so some of the projects of the researchers at RMC were deemed to be worthy of funding from the council.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, I take the question as not pertaining specifically to the F-35 but to provisioning in general. I would emphasize—and my colleague, the ADM Materiel, may want to intervene—that DND has actually a fairly solid record in estimating costs. Yes, some projects do go over.

National Defence committee  The government would first look to DND to fund that cost overrun from within its approved reference levels. DND would have to demonstrate with absolute clarity that it was unable to shift its priorities to cash-manage a cost increase to a particular project. We do not—certainly on my watch, we have not—come in looking for supplementary estimates to fund cost increases for projects.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Deputy. Mr. Chair, with respect to the $28 million that is available to fund other initiatives because of the reprofiling, there was about a six-month delay in getting effective project approval to proceed with the construction of the centres. As a consequence, the spending has been pushed to the right.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chair, the 2010-11 fiscal year is a very good example that we can use to answer this question. The public accounts will show that, versus the amount of money that was appropriated by Parliament compared to what we spent, there was about $2.4 billion unspent. However, in any given fiscal year, the executive has the authority to reduce the spending ceiling that Parliament has given us.

National Defence committee  I would perhaps defer to the vice-admiral, if he wants to add more. I would say that these supplementary estimates do respond to our financial requirements for 2011-12. I would say, Mr. Chair, that we diligently manage our appropriations. You will know that there remains one more set of supplementary estimates this year.

National Defence committee  Yes—