This is interesting. This is where we get into the bump up between the political and the bureaucratic. I didn't hear anybody here take ownership of that decision. If anything, I heard people saying to go somewhere else down the line to find an answer. We'll have to decide how we're going to wrestle with that as we're pulling together our report. It looks like it was an artificial pressure from outside governance and management, and enough that the Auditor General has made a pretty big deal of it in his report.
Now we're finding out that some of the delays we're dealing with are as a direct result of that money being taken out. This is a big deal, and it's not that complicated. The fact is, there was a three-year plan to save $72 million. The first year was delayed, and yet they went ahead and took all the money out in one year. Now we're hearing from Shared Services the damage that did.
I can't get an answer out of Treasury Board because that's likely where the pressure came from. I would be very shocked if it were a bureaucrat who ordered them to take that money out. It would be an interesting pursuit of the separation between the bureaucratic and the political were we to go down that rabbit hole. But clearly, I think I can see the politics.
What I want to do is to come back to the Auditor General on this.
Sir, on page 22, exhibit 4.2, you've gone very much out of your way to explain this issue, to make sure that it's highlighted and that we understand.
Can you please give us your further thoughts and comments not only about how this was a mistake, but would you also tell us how this should have been properly handled and accounted for?