Two points of clarification: under the accrual accounting reporting, the environmental liabilities are recorded. There are cases--for example, the Sydney tar ponds--where there is a formal agreement between the Government of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia as to what costs the Government of Canada will assume to clean that up. It's not simply that Parliament will decide whether you want to pay this or not. There is a formal commitment and a formal agreement that the government will pay x dollars to clean that site up.
Parliament will vote on the cash, so next year the government will spend, say, $10 million. Parliament votes yes, you'll spend $10 million, but there's a formal commitment for $200 million, so that $200 million is booked as a liability. But you are only actually seeing the $10 million cash; you don't see the $200 million that has actually been committed. If you move to accrual appropriations, there would be some form of seeing that actual commitment. I think you'll have to pay that, unless you somehow go into breach of contract.
There are many commitments like that. They are formal commitments. There are, obviously, a lot of programs that are ongoing but could be stopped, I guess, year to year, but there are already many commitments that have an impact over several years. I think this is the point the chair was trying to get at earlier.