Oh, isn't that sweet. Every one of them, “I wasn't there; it's not my fault.” Well, Chair, they run the risk, but we can still go back and find those who were there, and maybe that's something we ought to consider. Do we have that power? This kind of stuff is not acceptable to hear on crucial questions, “Oh, I wasn't there.” You go to the next one, “I wasn't there”, and then to the next one, “I wasn't there”.
That's not good enough, and it was one of the reasons we made deputy ministers accounting officers, so that they couldn't do that. I have to tell you, Chair, this stinks to high heaven. In terms of governance issues, removing that money before the money was saved makes no sense. I'll give a pass to Shared Services. At least they're not trying to say that it was an okay idea, because it wasn't. It sounds as though they got pressure from on high.
I'm not hearing an answer from on high as to why they sent that through. At the end of the day, we still have an unanswered question here as to why money was taken out of a budget before it should have been, and nobody can answer. That's not acceptable.