Public Accounts committee  No, I don't, sir.

Public Accounts committee  Can I expand on that for one second? Mr. Poilievre gave me way too much credit. I didn't really double the budget of the organization. I was certainly at the centre of the transactions, but there were a whole lot of other people involved. The fact that certain events happened, such as 9/11, obviously helped.

Public Accounts committee  No, they should not.

Public Accounts committee  That's right.

Public Accounts committee  Well, the legal opinion applied to all of them.

Public Accounts committee  The legal opinion would have applied to all of those expenses.

Public Accounts committee  We had a legal opinion that said we couldn't charge it to appropriations—

Public Accounts committee  —or pensions.

Public Accounts committee  Well, first of all, we did take his authority away. But going to another government department is not the same authority. Basically, going to Public Works is the way to go when you want to have contracts, because they are the experts. They have a large number of people who are specialists in that.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  That was for all the contracting authority within the RCMP.

Public Accounts committee  If I can continue for one second, sir, the authority for contracting in Public Works is not the RCMP's authority, it's Public Works' authority. When we go over there for a contract, we expect them to do their work.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, but they contract on behalf of the RCMP; there's no question about that.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, very disturbing.