In defence of Madam Cochrane, you might say that when she saw a vacancy occurring, it would not be at the top of her mind to try to make sure a vacancy did not occur. The vacancy caused this whole problem with the Auditor General--the cost of having office space that was not being used. So from your experience, she probably made a fairly good decision to allow the Government of Canada to have some vacant office space in the city of Montreal.
On March 6th, 2008. See this statement in context.