With the sponsorship issue, a huge number of the problems that came up were payments that were made under contracts when they shouldn't have been. That is clearly the statutory responsibility of the deputy minister, and the only thing you can say about that is that the deputy minister failed in his duty. I think the public accounts committee's entitled to say that sort of thing in a report, which is not something the Privy Council Office agrees with.
If you get to the issue you've been looking at more recently of the contract for space in Montreal, the contract is actually the responsibility of the minister. The minister can delegate contracting responsibilities, but the contract is the responsibility of the minister. Under the contracting policy of the Treasury Board, the deputy head, the deputy minister, now the accounting officer, has the responsibility to inform the minister when a contract does not meet the standards of prudence and probity.
Under the accounting officer approach, it is the duty of the deputy head, the accounting officer, to do that. If the minister still disregards it, the deputy minister could presumably appeal to the Secretary of the Treasury Board.