Actually an amount that is within 5% of what you are allowed to spend in a year.... And as you know whether it's particular projects, particular contribution agreements we have with different parties, whether it is other kinds of contracts such as procurement and so forth, it is very difficult at midnight on March 31 to have come to spend 100% of your budget. Nor is that necessarily the goal. You obviously want to spend what is sensible to be spent. It is reasonable to leave ourselves some margin so that we don't overspend the budget. This means that typically it is not atypical for a department to be roughly 2% unspent at the end of the year because that is a prudent margin that you are observing to ensure you don't go over budget during your fiscal year, which would be very bad for any public servant to contemplate.
On November 27th, 2013. See this statement in context.