I'm going to seek the advice of the subject matter experts, except to say that what we are doing here specifically is not what Admiral Donaldson asked us to do. He said there was a process under way through which the department was addressing it. It's taking time, but it's involved with the Financial Administration Act, the National Defence Act, and this.
This act does not give anybody the authority to spend money, nor does the National Defence Act. That comes from the Financial Administration Act. So saying that here is not an appropriate response to the bill as written. Despite the ruling or vote just made, it is out of our scope.
On my question going forward, will we be going through this every time? A number of these amendments are outside of the scope of the bill, so will we go through the same process every time we come up with that? I just throw that out as a rhetorical question at the moment, because I'm afraid I know where this is going, and it's going to take some time.
We have a legislative clerk here who is giving us advice. We have subject matter experts who are giving us advice. I think we should, to the maximum extent possible, listen to that advice.