First of all, Mr. Chair, I'm not sure I'm the best person to explain to you. The reason I asked for the opinion is.... I'm not an accountant and I'm not an expert in commercial law. I am a lawyer. The reason for asking for the opinion from Mr. Pigeon was to have the explanation. I can go through the opinion if you like, but I'm just reading from the opinion.
If it's helpful, I can certainly speak as a deputy minister and say that all of us are responsible for the appropriations under our responsibility. Our first responsibility, as I see it, would be to live within the appropriation. If we feel that for some reason we're not going to be able to, it would be our responsibility to flag to a minister—but also to the Treasury Board and perhaps others, depending on what the issue was—that we were not able to.
That's due to both the Financial Administration Act and also management accountability, which is a whole series of Treasury Board policies.