I think that's an interesting question.
Our role is to help you—parliamentarians—and Canadians make sense of all these numbers by providing you with independent, non-partisan cost estimates of proposals that are before you, and that's what we did.
There are a number of numbers that have been used or quoted publicly over time, as you mentioned. There was the first initial estimate by DND. Then there was an Auditor General report where the Auditor General at the time looked at the life-cycle costs. Then we published our own cost estimate of just the development and acquisition, and last week we included not only the development and acquisition of these ships but also their operations, their maintenance and, finally, their disposal when they are no longer suitable for use by the navy.
That's why it can be a bit confusing. That's also why the report we released last week breaks down each of the four phases. The development phase is when DND works on the design and has project management to determine what would be the best ships to meet its needs. Acquisition is an estimate of the cost of building and purchasing the ships. Operations and maintenance is keeping the ships at sea with the required personnel. Disposal is tearing down the ships and safely disposing of the resulting materials.