Good. I think that's important. Again, that's quantity, not the valuation of what that inventory is, and that's really what we have to focus in on.
We just pulled up the national audit office of Great Britain, and some of the committee will be going there in the next few weeks to speak with their public accounts committee. At their national audit office, they have a defence and armed forces page. It says the ministry of defence is buying more inventory than it uses and not consistently disposing of it if it's no longer needed, using money that could be spent elsewhere. The head of the NAO goes on to say:
In the current economic climate where the department is striving to make savings, it can ill-afford to use resources to buy and hold unnecessary levels of stock, and it clearly does so. The root cause of excess stock, which the Department is seeking to address, is that management and accountability structures currently fail to provide the incentives for cost-effective inventory management.
That becomes the problem. When we're trying to deal with taxpayers' dollars, the valuation of some of this inventory becomes a problem, not just for Canada, but for our allied countries and probably for most countries in the world.
It goes on and it lists some of the varied concerns that Mr. Chen, Mr. Godin, and Mr. McColeman brought forward, so we get it. It is a problem around the world.
You have come today and you've thrown out an offer, I guess, to be more accountable to this committee, because we're called upon to do our job as well. I'd be interested in hearing ways we can do that.
I'll turn it over to Mr. Christopherson for a few ideas. He's kind of our idea guy.