Keeping on the theme of standards, we had a witness here by the name of Ronald Salole from the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants. I believe I asked him specifically about infrastructure liabilities and environmental liabilities. His concern was that we not bring those liabilities onto the books until we have made a commitment to spend the dollars--and not that we've made the commitment a political decision, but actually assigned a contractor to do the work. It was his belief that within the standards that was accepted generally.
My concern is that many people on this committee want us to be able to see more clearly the reality out there, the liabilities we might have out there. I'm sensing and realizing that we may not be able to do that with accrual accounting.
I see that we're still using environmental liability, so obviously there is some way we can bring that in if the contractor has been signed up to do the work. But what are your thoughts on this?