Thank you, Mr. Chair and Ms. Crombie.
This is actually a quick question for the Auditor General. It doesn't relate specifically to defence, so my apologies, gentlemen.
It was something that you had said a little while ago. I may have misheard it, but maybe you can just explain.
It was a comment about departments not knowing the full amount of what they will have allocated until well into the year and that therefore they have difficulty knowing what they will be able to spend. That strikes me as something that would be very difficult for all departments just in overall government spending and when we know that, in any budget cycle, near the end of the fiscal year you tend to see spending even on things that wouldn't necessarily be necessary in order to keep that budget. We know that happens in the private sector everywhere. Can you elaborate on that?
That raised a real concern for me, that there might be a whole lot of money that gets allocated to departments well into the fiscal year and they then are saying, “Oh, we didn't really plan on this; we didn't know we were going to have it, but we better spend it.”