Government Operations committee  I didn't hear that. Did you say it was?

Government Operations committee  I would just say if they were buying it for their own account, they would have checked, as part of due diligence, to make sure that there was a legitimate claim, but none of them was buying it for their own account. They were buying--in fact they were precluded, in the case of the Royal Bank and the Bank of Montreal, from participating in the deal.

Government Operations committee  Okay. The first thing is that we had no guidance on what they were using, so we used what we thought was the appropriate rate, which was the borrowing cost to the federal government at the time. So most of the work we did in the first round of our support to the group was actually at 4%.

Government Operations committee  I can. Let me just raise one issue that did come up. One of the claims was that the private sector, if they were operating this, would be able to deliver a 20% improvement in operating costs. The evidence of that has not been forthcoming. We've asked to see a study that was reportedly looking at that issue, from DPW some years back, but we should understand—or at least, my understanding of the current situation is—that the private sector is already being contracted, in most cases, to provide the ongoing maintenance of these buildings.

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Patty. The handout I've given you is just a summary I'll speak to. If you have further questions, we'll try to handle them as they come up. Essentially, the deal is one in which there is a turnover of buildings for cash and in which the new owners make a commitment to make certain capital improvements, not all, but those that are published in a schedule that the lessors were told they would have to commit to doing.