The provision relates to financial assets—I believe it is in the provision—that the government may acquire. The intent was with respect to currency provisions that may be acquired. The example of U.S. dollars was a clear one. Another one is sterling where the government sold off Chancellor House, I believe it's called, in the U.K. in recent years and acquired a lot of sterling that had to be converted to Canadian dollars, and again over a long period of time.
There was a time frame in which we had exposure to the sterling, because the Canadian government entered the contract and the sale price was determined but the receipt of the funds occurred a number of months later, so there was foreign currency exposure. There was a delay and a question of whether the government should engage in contracts to hedge against that risk.
The nature of the contract is what you could call a forward agreement. You engage with a counterpart, probably a financial institution, to agree upon a future price and exchange rate where you transact the currency. If one were to receive that sterling a number of months later, you'll engage with the financial institution to say, “I will deliver to you this amount of sterling at this set price”, and then they agree to give us a certain amount in Canadian dollars.
