Mr. Chair, I think the “penny-wise and pound foolish” adage is appropriate in a deferred-maintenance context. The evidence is very clear that if you don't invest sufficient funds in keeping your assets in good condition, there are real risks that you'll end up spending more if you postpone that work. That was essentially the conclusion of the Auditor General in the 2017 special examination, and it has been the reason why, at the NCC, we've developed an asset-prioritization index. The purpose of that is to really get at critical assets and prioritize critical assets so that we're doing everything we can to address the deferred maintenance of the assets that are at greatest risk physically but also at greatest risk of causing more financial costs for the taxpayers if we defer further the maintenance of and the work on those assets.
It's a very important principle. We take it seriously. We've developed processes and methodologies to do the best we can with the funds that we have to address the deferred maintenance, as I said, in the order of priority that makes the most economic sense.