Okay, that's your time, Mr. Aspin. Thank you.
Colleagues, I'll be leaving the chair shortly for another obligation, and the first vice-chair, Mr. Kramp, will assume the chair, so I only have one question and I'd like to insert it now if I can.
Mr. Wernick, in your opening comments you mentioned that you've been in this position 65 months and have been in front of this committee four times. You'll probably recall that I was here for every one of those months and every one of those hearings. You may also recall that the one thing that launched me more than anything else regarding the Auditor General's reports was when there had been previous audits with the same findings and the situation had become worse. And then we would look at the responses from the previous time and see that they were very similar to the ones we would get at the current time. Mr. Kramp and I have been through this a number of cycles.
My question to you is this, and I say it with the greatest respect, that you're the accounting officer and you're on the dime, sir. I accept that the problems are huge and that they're not all yours alone. But I do have to ask the question, sir. What difference is there now between the promises you're making today on behalf of the government versus the promises that have been made in the past that weren't kept? In other words, why should we believe the department today, given the track record on so many of these issues?