Government Operations committee  An error that then just carried forward, yes. I mean, it's the type of thing that you would expect a professional group charging many hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid, that's all.

Government Operations committee  With reference to BMO and RBC, my issue with them is more an issue of the assumptions that they are making in terms of the cost of money to governments and the way in which they're doing the discounting, and those are areas in which I would say there is room for a variety of opinions.

Government Operations committee  I'm trying to remember. I think it was $10,000. It was not a big deal.

Government Operations committee  It's only been around since 1972, December of 1972. We started paying people on January 1, 1973. So that's been 34 years, or 35 years by the end of this month, actually.

Government Operations committee  I don't know the answer to that. I would look to the nature of the eleven bids you received, and try to understand how many of those were for all of the properties, whether some were just for one and whether there were multiple bids on one property, just to know the degree to which you might have had the kind of competition you allege there was.

Government Operations committee  This is simply a device to try to help people size what's happening, which is that you're paying a lease cost over 25 years. If you accumulate it without discounting, it is a multiple of the original outlay. It is of course precisely the imprecision of such statements that leads us to take the net present value when we analyze this.

Government Operations committee  I see no evidence of that. I just see evidence of carelessness in putting together their spreadsheet and not making sure the data they have is properly aligned. But I have no sense that the numbers they're using were incorrect, in some sense, from the basic information that was provided.

Government Operations committee  Let me be brief, though, given the hour. If someone can take and buy the property and do something with it that is not going to be otherwise done, and that new use of that property is a positive contribution to the town they're in or to the businesses they're running, then you might say that it was a worthwhile transaction.

Government Operations committee  No, I should make clear that these are the annual costs--

Government Operations committee  --for the first year, so that you keep on giving. And then of course the lease is escalated, so after five years you'll be paying a higher amount. Keep in mind, if you own the building you're not escalating your return. You are essentially having to pay here the additional lease.

Government Operations committee  Unless they are specified in this set of claims that were laid out, yes. This is a net-net-net lease: it's net of operating costs, it's net of utilities, it's net of capital cost except otherwise specified.

Government Operations committee  It's a question of price.

Government Operations committee  Don't forget that one part of the transaction in year zero is you're getting a big bundle of money; you're getting $1.4 billion, say, in cash. That's not going to DPW, and it's not going to the departments who are involved in individual buildings; it's going to the government. So that's the offset to all of this.

Government Operations committee  Okay, it sounds good.

Government Operations committee  It's the first phase you're talking about, not the second--43% to 47%? Just these seven buildings, or the nine?