The one in 2003-04 occurred under my watch when I was commissioner. There was certainly absolutely no intention to mislead Parliament at all.
As indicated in the Auditor General's report, there is a chronology of events around that so-called error in 2003-04. The Canada Firearms Centre had just been set up as a separate agency. We were building our financial, accounting, and systems capability. We were doing a review of all of the financial records, and actually our accounting experts identified that amounts should perhaps be booked in 2003-04. Naturally that was a big finding, because our allocation for the year did not contemplate that we would have to include something like that. We brought the matter to the attention of the central agencies as well as the Department of Public Safety and others that were involved, because at that point in the fiscal year it was important to get a resolution on this so we would know the way forward vis-à-vis Parliament--whether, for instance, supplementary estimates would be required or not.
A lot of discussions took place, including discussion of where they should have started, which was a look at the actual issue--the nature of the contract--to try to ascertain the amount of debts and liabilities. This, frankly, took us into very technical discussions involving lawyers and involving even more senior accountants about what is and is not a liability, what is and is not a debt.
Ultimately a decision was made, based on all that input, that this amount was best recorded as a contingent liability or an unrecorded liability, and not as a charge to the vote of the Canada Firearms Centre. As commissioner of firearms I can tell you, without any hesitation or any doubt, that based on the steps we had gone through, we were comfortable that we were doing the right thing. Two years later the Auditor General has had a chance to look at it, has raised concerns about it, and has characterized it as an error. The Comptroller General's office has acknowledged, and agrees now, that on balance it would have perhaps been better to do it the other way, but rest assured that two years ago, when those decisions were made, there was absolutely no intent to mislead Parliament. Had the conclusion been the other way, steps would have been taken to address the financial shortfall.