Good morning, Chair Ratansi, vice-chairs Findlay and Pauzé, and members of the committee. My name is Jay Famiglietti. I'm the executive director of the Global Institute for Water Security at the University of Saskatchewan, where I hold the Canada 150 Chair in Hydrology and Remote Sensing. I'm also the lead organizer of today's Water Day on the Hill for which we brought 24 water scientists from 14 universities and seven different provinces to Ottawa to talk with you about our science, that is, the science of water.
We're here today to directly communicate our science to you because it's compelling and also because it's our responsibility to keep you informed and because we want you to know that we are here for you. When you need information on a certain water topic, please do not hesitate to reach out.
In my research, I use satellites and I develop computer models to track how freshwater availability is changing all over the world. The maps shown on the screen were produced by my team and our collaborators using a NASA satellite called GRACE, which stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment. The GRACE mission, which flew from 2002 through 2017, behaved more like a scale than a typical satellite, which we might think of as a space-borne camera. Instead, GRACE literally weighed the regions of the world that were gaining water—shown in blue—and that were losing water—shown in red.
Broadly speaking, the map has a background pattern in which the high and low latitude regions of the world, the already wet regions, are getting wetter—shown by the light blue background colours—and the mid-latitude regions of the world in between, that is the already dry areas, are getting drier—shown by the lighter red and orange background colours. The map is then dotted with what I call “hot spots for water insecurity”. These are places where there is too much water—shown by the deeper blue spots—for example, due to flooding becoming more extreme, or places where there is too little water—shown by the deeper red spots—due to more pronounced draught or due to the over-exploitation of groundwater.
The map paints a picture of humans, then, as the driving force of a very rapidly changing freshwater landscape, for example, due to climate change, which is causing the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and Alpine glaciers, like those in Alaska and British Columbia, to melt, contributing to sea level rise and impacting the source of stream-flow in our rivers.
You can also see a number of deep red spots across the mid-latitudes of the world, including those in California, Texas, the Middle East, India, Bangladesh, Beijing and several more. These represent primarily the disappearance of groundwater from the world's major aquifers. In most regions around the world, the groundwater in these aquifers is being massively overpumped to provide irrigation water to fuel global food production. A profound lack of governance and management the world over allows this over-exploitation to continue largely unabated. The upshot of this map is that not only is our global water security at risk but so too is our global food security.
Canada is not immune to these issues. It, too, is less water-secure than is generally appreciated. Looking at the GRACE map, we can see the impact of melting ice across the Canadian west, the north and the northeast, and the cumulative impact of flooding across Alberta and western Saskatchewan. This is consistent with climate model predictions of how climate change will impact Canada through melting ice and permafrost, shorter snow seasons, and more liquid rain rather than snowfall in the mountains, all of which will lead to changes in the timing of stream-flow and freshwater availability for people, for agriculture and for the environment, and to greater oscillations between flooding and draught.
Except that it's already happening now, and it's happening at rates that are quicker than our models project. It's happening at rates that are so quick that we are unable to prepare for them. Canadian water scientists like me and my colleagues are working on continuing these observations and developing new ones, and we'll be talking with you about them today. We're thinking about their implications and about how best to prepare Canada for its more complicated water future and therefore its more complicated food and energy futures. We're thinking about things like integrated river basin planning, the need for national-scale flood, groundwater and water availability forecasting, and the need for new governance paradigms for global groundwater or for a Canada water agency that can circumvent the fractured nature of water management that is so common in developed countries and yet stands in the way of the urgent need to address the many issues that are becoming visible on this map.
I will close by saying that the rapid pace of change of our freshwater landscape certainly presents many challenges, but it also presents an opportunity to show how a nation such as Canada can lead the world towards managing the way through to sustainable national and global water futures.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much. I very much appreciate the opportunity to be here with the committee today.
My name is Dave Rudolph. I'm a groundwater hydrologist at the University of Waterloo. Today I'd like to talk about three main points associated with Canada's subsurface water resources, or groundwater.
Groundwater is rapidly emerging as one of Canada's most strategic natural resources, influencing current topics related to the environment and sustainable development, yet it probably is the nation's most poorly understood resource. Part of it is because it tends to be out of sight and out of mind.
I am going to provide a bit of an overview of current groundwater use in Canada, just to give an idea of how Canadians use it. Then I'll go through a variety of questions related to emerging issues that are environmentally impacting groundwater at a national scale and will have social and economic impacts on a wide range of issues, and I'll provide a couple of examples of that. Finally, I have a couple of recommendations that might help us ensure that we stay proactive as we manage groundwater resources moving forward.
As Professor Famiglietti presented just a moment ago, at a global scale, groundwater represents an enormous component of our accessible fresh water. Approximately 95% to 98% of accessible fresh water is in the groundwater reserve. It's available throughout the world and it is depended on significantly.
In Canada, between the years 1970 and 2015, our dependence on groundwater went from about 10% to about 33%. In that short time period, we've been progressively turning towards groundwater as a substantial resource. That's about 10 million Canadians using groundwater on a daily basis. We expect this dependency to grow, yet it's quite variable across Canada.
For instance, in Prince Edward Island and the Yukon Territory, it is 100% of the supply that's used. Across the prairie provinces, it is about 30%; and in Ontario, maybe 30% to 40%. That gives you an idea of how substantial it is across Canada.
As illustrated by part of what you saw just a moment ago, there is clear evidence now that groundwater will be a crucial component in helping us mitigating against climate change because of climate warming. It will help us maintain the economic growth that we are looking for and a standard of living for our future Canadians, but there are challenges coming forward and I'll mention just a few.
The first relates to the decades of land use management and resource development that has resulted in slow and chronic degradation of groundwater quality. That is now beginning to threaten municipal water supplies and ecosystem health across Canada. It's slow moving but arriving now at our doorstep.
Particularly challenging are examples you may know of: urban road de-icers, which are particularly difficult; agricultural nutrient management; and retired metal and petroleum mining operations across Canada.
The second point I'll refer to is the emergence of new contaminants of concern, ones that we may never have anticipated before. One that is particularly prevalent these days is a series of substances referred to as per- or polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. You may have heard the term. They are being widely detected in the environment, tend to be bioaccumulating, and as yet we don't know how to deal with them and what the health effects are. This is something that is changing very quickly. Recently, just in the last few months, the U.S. Department of Defense invested $100 million in PFAS research. Groundwater appears to be one of the most substantial vectors of movement.
The third issue I'll point to just for this morning is the identification of hundreds of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells across Canada, all of which are indicating a potential impact in terms of groundwater threats. Right here in Ontario, we have 25,000 of these abandoned wells, something that's really not well known. They are under the Great Lakes, around them, and all through Ontario. That type of threat is not understood very well. The overall environmental economic legacy of it is still under consideration.
One of the biggest challenges, of course, in groundwater management is that jurisdictional responsibility is divided between municipal, provincial and federal governments, which makes it challenging to manage it in the long run. However, because of the strategic significance of the nation's groundwater and how it's changing so rapidly, federal leadership is critical, moving forward.
To that light, I will point out two major, substantial documents that the federal government has developed over the last few years.
In 2003, NRCan initiated a national committee to develop a Canadian framework for collaboration on groundwater. That document provides a really good road map for governance. It's as timely now as it was then, and it has gained international attention. It is being used in lots of parts of the world. It's something that's available, and I tried to bring a bilingual version of it for you today. I've only found the English version, but it's online on the NRCan website.
The second one is a document that the federal government commissioned from the Council of Canadian Academies in 2009, and it is referred to as “The Sustainable Management of Groundwater in Canada”. It's an excellent reference. I've brought the both French and English versions of it for you today. I'll leave it with the chair at the end of the day. Again, CCA developed that document.
Both of them are totally relevant now, with a lot of great information. As a result of the changes I mentioned, we need to revisit some of the topics going forward.
To close, moving forward, I have some recommendations.
I think groundwater needs to be fully integrated into all of our conversations regarding the environment and sustainable development in Canada, particularly as we consider the creation of a new Canada water agency. It plays a substantial role.
One of the opportunities for us now, I think, is another national-scale committee to evaluate the current status of groundwater in Canada and to provide advice to the federal and provincial government authorities in developing the Canadian water agency, building on the excellence that's already come out with those two documents I mentioned—they're a great way to start—and engaging Canada's groundwater and hydrogeology expertise in academia, government and private business. It's recognized worldwide.
Thank you very much.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for providing me with the opportunity to address the committee today.
My name is Dr. Amina Stoddart. I am an assistant professor in the Centre for Water Resources Studies in the Department of Civil and Resource Engineering at Dalhousie University.
Together with my colleagues in the Centre for Water Resources Studies, I work closely with communities, water and wastewater utilities, engineering consultants and technology providers within the water sector to investigate and provide solutions to water and wastewater treatment challenges.
For example, I'm currently leading a research partnership with water and wastewater utility Halifax Water to optimize wastewater treatment approaches to ensure compliance with federal regulations on systems for wastewater effluent and investigate and address emerging priorities for wastewater treatment. This wastewater research builds on a long-term partnership in research on drinking water treatment between Dalhousie University and Halifax Water, which I had the opportunity to be a part of as a researcher.
It is well known and accepted that climate change affects water quantity. We see threats to the availability of water through drought conditions as well as scenarios such as flooding and sea-level rise, where we simply have too much water. While water quantity is a concern, one less-visible and poorly understood challenge is the impact that climate change has on water quality.
Historically, the design of plants for water and wastewater treatment has been based on a regulatory compliance approach, where the focus is on ensuring that treated drinking water or waste water is below specific concentrations for various water-quality parameters at the drinking-water tap or at the end of the wastewater effluent pipe. This approach is based on periodic sampling, log books and a narrow view of water quality, as I will describe.
With this approach, there is a notable absence of consideration for the changes in water quality that may occur over time due to climate change. The water quality of our drinking-water source, such as a lake or a groundwater well, plays a pivotal role in the performance of water-treatment plants and ultimately impacts the water quality at our tap. While seasonality is recognized and accounted for in design, long-term changes that subtly transform a drinking-water source are simply not accounted for under present design paradigms. But this is what is happening to our water quality.
In 2017, our team published research that demonstrated an increased operational burden on water-treatment utilities as a result of regional climate changes impacting the water quality at the source over a 15-year period. Our work showed that, because of climate-driven increases in water pH and natural organic matter concentrations, one drinking-water-treatment plant required nearly a quadrupling in treatment chemical dose over a period of 15 years in order to continue to achieve drinking-water-quality standards. These additional chemical costs required more trucks to ship chemical agents and waste from the plant. To put it another way, climate change resulted in poorer water quality in the lake source and increased greenhouse-gas emissions.
To be clear, these water quality changes were subtle on a day-to-day time scale, but when we observed them retrospectively over more than a decade, we observed a large, impactful change in water quality that we do not see reversing but rather accelerating. We are now studying this on a larger scale with Halifax Water and other utilities, including the New York Department of Environmental Protection and Tampa Bay Water as well as academic colleagues in the U.K. The broad consensus is that we have an imminent challenge that exists for both water and wastewater facilities.
To adapt to climate change, utilities will ultimately need to consider modularity in design, and draw from robust data streams to inform operations.
In light of this, our research team has been working toward modular design solutions that can be employed during times of challenging water quality to assist utilities in achieving water-quality goals.
With respect to data streams, conventionally, regulatory compliance is determined on a very low number of water-quality measurements, considering that millions of litres of water may be produced each day. In this framework, a boil water advisory, for example, is often reduced to a few coliform measurements.
As an answer to this, our research team has looked closely into artificial intelligence as a means to provide robust decision-support data to help improve water quality through a risk management approach.
Ultimately, this is not a small task in front of us; however, the potential of a national water agency creates a strong signal that acknowledges the challenge and the need to prioritize water quality for Canadians.
In closing, I want to inform you that as an assistant professor, I am in the very early days of my research career. However, it is clear that the impact that climate change is having on water quality is already profound and will undoubtedly shape and inform my research career.
Thank you again for the invitation. I look forward to future dialogue.
:
I would like to continue along the lines of Mr. Redekopp's questioning.
In terms of what, to your mind, the Canada water agency would look like, is it something that should be comprehensive? The process of its coming into being, I guess, is what I'm really more concerned about.
In your view, is it something that should be quite comprehensive from the start? You were saying that we need to bring together universities and provinces and integrate all of these players and conduct studies. Is that the approach that should be taken? In that case, the next question becomes how much we integrate, because, as you know, water issues move so fast that we could continue to expand the scope of the agency. Is the better approach to focus on a couple of bite-sized problematic areas like climate forecasting or flood forecasting?
Last Thursday I went to a briefing at the Canadian Meteorological Centre, and I thought there was plenty of subject matter there to occupy the Canada water agency for quite awhile with some practical outputs, if you will.
I guess I'm trying to get your sense as to what the Canada water agency would look like and how we get there. Do we start small or do we do something comprehensive with a big bang at the start?
:
That's a great question.
It's part of the challenge in managing groundwater, and it always has been. It's not just Canada that has that issue. I worked in California for quite some time, and they have very similar issues with state versus federal initiatives.
In the United States the federal government provides access and the compilation of data, as Jay made reference to, that I think only the federal government has the ability to pull together and combine to make that information available to the provincial authorities for making decisions that are appropriate.
The Canadian water agency, based on your suggestion, could help work on priority issues that are relevant provincially. So starting where Amina works and going across Canada—to Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba—the provincial water issues are very different. Flooding is a critical issue in some areas. In some areas it's abandoned oil wells, and in the north it's thawing permafrost that's happening very quickly and impacting all of the infrastructure up there.
In the Canadian government, you have NRCan, Environment Canada, Agriculture Canada and forestry all working in water and providing phenomenal insight in many different areas. If we could facilitate that to the provincial authorities to help them in their decision-making, it would give federal guidance in a way that I think would coordinate it.
I really like your idea of focusing on specific priority issues.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
We are happy to appear before your committee this morning. It is very important to us that parliamentarians take an interest in our work.
With me today is Kimberley Leach, who is an audit principal responsible for many of our environmental and sustainable development audits.
With your permission, I would like to begin by providing a bit of a historical context about the function of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development.
The idea of having some form of environmental auditor general for Canada had its origins in 1987, with the landmark Brundtland commission report. This report introduced the concept of sustainable development, which was again discussed at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit. The position of Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development was created in 1995 and was made part of the Office of the Auditor General of Canada by an amendment to the Auditor General Act.
[Translation]
The amendments to the act also created two new government processes, namely, departmental sustainable development strategies and environmental petitions. I'll touch on both processes briefly.
I'll now provide an overview of our mandate.
The commissioner is appointed by the Auditor General. The commissioner gives parliamentarians objective, fact-based information and expert advice on the federal government's efforts to protect the environment and foster sustainable development.
First, we conduct performance audits on environmental and sustainable development topics. In these audits, we verify whether the activities and programs of federal organizations are being managed with due regard for economy, efficiency and environmental impact. The performance audits that we submit to Parliament follow the same processes, auditing standards and methodology that we use for the Auditor General's performance audits.
We also manage the environmental petitions process, which enables Canadians to obtain responses directly from federal ministers on specific questions regarding environmental and sustainable development issues under federal jurisdiction.
We also review and comment on the federal government's overall sustainable development strategy. We monitor and report on the extent to which federal departments and agencies contribute to meeting the targets and goals set out in the federal sustainable development strategy.
On behalf of the Auditor General, the commissioner reports to Parliament at least once a year.
[English]
In addition to these responsibilities, the commissioner also helps the Office of the Auditor General to incorporate environmental and sustainable development issues, as appropriate, in all of its work for Parliament. This includes considering the United Nations sustainable development goals, or SDGs, when selecting and designing performance audits. Canada and 192 other countries committed to the United Nations 2030 agenda for sustainable development and its 17 SDGs in September 2015.
ln 2018, we audited Canada's preparedness to implement the SDGs. We concluded that the Government of Canada was not adequately prepared to implement the 2030 agenda for sustainable development. There was no governance structure and there was limited national consultation and engagement on Canada's approach, and there was no implementation plan with a system to measure, monitor and report on progress nationally.
The SDGs will continue to be a priority for the work of the entire Office of the Auditor General of Canada. For example, we are working on an audit of the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development, which should be ready for tabling this fall. I look forward to reporting to Parliament on the government's progress in achieving its objectives.
Madam Chair, we are always happy to discuss our past work with this committee, including our various reports on climate change, which will also continue to be a priority area for the commissioner's work. I would also like to mention that we will present a report to Parliament later this spring on the transportation of dangerous goods.
[Translation]
As always, we're available to appear before the committee at any time. The committee's attention to our reports supports accountability. This allows you, as parliamentarians, to ask senior officials to appear before you to answer questions about our findings and explain how they intend to follow your directives and our recommendations.
This concludes my opening remarks.
We'll be pleased to answer your questions.
:
Thank you, and thank you for the briefing this morning.
We aren't currently doing a study, but we're looking at opportunities for us to study. The topic of the sustainable development goals from the United Nations is interesting. As you know, they were adopted in September 2015, so they are pretty recent to the governance discussions.
I was at the public accounts committee. We met last week as well, the last time we were together. I asked the Auditor General, at the time, whether we were using SDGs as our audit criteria in any other areas, because we also have the environment pieces under you, the SDGs around quality education, and SDG3 relating to good health and well-being. We're looking at infrastructure, decent work, and economic growth, so there are many SDGs that don't apply directly to the environment, but do apply to the work our government is doing in conjunction with provincial, territorial, and even municipal governments. It does become quite complicated to include SDGs in trying to adopt a strategy going forward.
Are you bookmarking SDGs for the different areas of the government's work, whether it's ESDC or Innovation? Who's looking at that?
:
Good morning, everyone.
I just want to make sure that you have in front of you the deck that we provided to the clerk for distribution.
[Translation]
Thank you for inviting us to come and talk about the business of supply. I'll give a short presentation on the business of supply; the roles of the Treasury Board, the president and the secretariat; and the key dates and documents.
[English]
Just because this is the first lap around the track on estimates and supply for a lot of people here, slide 2 is a good slide because it sets out that the Constitution and the Federal Administration Act require Parliament to approve all government spending.
We classify spending based on the type of legislation used to approve it. What we call “voted spending” is approved through an appropriation act for a particular year. Through appropriation acts Parliament approves “up to” amounts and places conditions on the use of funds. In contrast, statutory expenditures are authorized through any piece of legislation other than an appropriation act. There may or may not be limits on the amounts spent or the time frame for spending.
To help inform parliamentarians' review of appropriation bills, estimates documents are tabled in Parliament and give details on planned spending. The Treasury Board, its president and its secretariat all have roles to play in the creation of estimates documents and other facets of the business of supply.
The president of the Treasury Board tables a number of documents in Parliament, main and supplementary estimates. A couple of weeks ago we tabled supplementary estimates (B), which are the last supplementary estimates of the fiscal year 2019-20. Last week main estimates were tabled, which effectively are setting up the foundation of spending for the fiscal year 2020-21.
Departmental plans and results reports—so departmental results reports for fiscal year 2018-19—were tabled a couple of weeks back. Those set out, effectively, the results for the first year under the new policy on results that was put in place in 2017. It's the first vintage year having a departmental results report.
The departmental plans for 2020-21, which are intended to provide additional information and to corroborate with the main estimates that were tabled last week, were tabled this morning. Parliamentarians will have access to both in terms of their review of planned spending for 2020-21.
At the end of a year, so after a year is complete, there's the tabling of the annual financial report, or the release of it by the Ministry of Finance and Minister of Finance, and then the tabling of the public accounts, which provide the reporting on the year that was. The public accounts for fiscal year 2018-19 were published after the election in December.
[Translation]
The Treasury Board plays a central decision-making role in the government's procurement activity. It carefully reviews and approves the expenditure plans of departments and agencies.
The secretariat helps the Treasury Board and the president with the business of supply in the following manner.
The secretariat prepares the estimates documents and provides advice regarding departmental planning and reporting on results. It oversees centrally managed funding that may be allocated to other organizations throughout the fiscal year. It reviews spending plans to ensure their effectiveness and efficiency and their alignment with government priorities.
[English]
Slide 4 is a useful slide because it goes through the steps in the supply process. We often use “estimates” and “supply” interchangeably. Supply is just the broader process of coming to Parliament in seeking funding for government operations.
Before items appear in estimates, a Treasury Board approval is sought through a submission or, in the case of a simple adjustment, such as a transfer or previously approved funding, in aide-mémoire documents. Estimates may be tabled in each of three supply periods set out in the House of Commons Standing Orders. The estimates are tabled in advance of the related appropriation bill to allow for study by parliamentarians. When you see the blue book, that's the study document. The appropriation bill will follow, and that's the actual bill that is tabled and voted upon in the House.
As part of the study of estimates, the Treasury Board president and TBS officials may appear in front of this committee in order to discuss the estimates for the government as a whole, in addition to our department's own plans. I gather that officials from Environment and the will be coming to speak about estimates, I believe later this week. That's part of their process. Other ministers and departmental officials may appear before committees responsible for their review of their estimates, which corroborates with that.
On the last allotted opposition day in a supply period, appropriation bills are introduced and voted on in the House. The bills are subsequently voted on in the Senate. Appropriation bills come into force upon royal assent. In addition, the Governor General signs a warrant authorizing expenditures from the consolidated revenue fund to be released. Only when that warrant is signed are departments able to access funds as specified.
If you look at slide 5, you will see this question that we get quite often about just understanding and following the budgetary authorities throughout the fiscal year. Just stepping back, the main estimates are tabled under the current Standing Orders. Main estimates are tabled by March 1 every year and present a full year of funding for the upcoming year.
The mains support two separate appropriation bills, so there's a kind of two-step we do in order to get access to funding. What we call “interim supply”, for approval before the end of March, provides sufficient resources for organizations until the end of June. The whole idea is to provide funding to organizations for the first three months of the fiscal year until such time as a second appropriation bill for full supply can be introduced in June for the remainder of the resources set out in the main estimates. It gives more time for parliamentarians to be able to review this.
Departmental plans are tabled soon after the main estimates, as has been done today, and give details on planned goals and activities as well as the associated financial and human resources. On supplementary estimates—you'll hear a lot people call them “supps (A), (B) and (C)”—the supplementary (A)s are effectively the first supplementary estimates to be tabled, typically in the spring. Supplementary (B)s are typically tabled in the fall and supplementary (C)s typically in the winter.
Supplementary estimates, of which you can expect two or three in most fiscal years, present additional resource requirements above amounts in main estimates. These often reflect new spending announced in a federal budget, as well as adjustments to previously approved funding, such as transfers between organizations or between votes.
Treasury Board central votes support the board's role as an employer of the public service and the financial manager. Funding in these votes is allocated among organizations throughout the fiscal year, based on specific conditions. For example, the carry-forward votes allow organizations to access funds, up to certain limits, which were unspent in the previous year.
At the end of a fiscal year, again, as I mentioned earlier, the public accounts report on total authorities and actual spending, while departmental results reports report on what was achieved related to the goals set out in the departmental plans.
Finally, we have a website called GC InfoBase. It is kind of the one-stop shop if you're interested in understanding the funding of programs by departments, where it's going, understanding resources and FTEs to support these operations. Then when we do the results and the government tables the departmental plans, as well as the departmental results report, there's a portal on results that you can go down and look per indicator and identify what's going on per indicator for a department, including a roll-up by department.
I'm spending a disproportionate amount of time on this because it is a very, very useful tool to understand the business of supply and the business of government. It has a lot of information there. It's very user intuitive. The OECD has regularly cited it as a best practice. We have one, the U.S. has USAspending and each leading country on central treasury management and reporting has systems like this. The whole intention is to provide information to Canadians and to parliamentarians so you can formulate better questions and think through the spending that is produced in front of you through the supplementary estimates documents, as well as the main estimates.
Why don't I leave it there? I'm open to any questions people might have.
:
You have two accounting systems. You have an accrual accounting system from the standpoint of our fiscal track. When you look at the budget, you'll look at the economic situation; you'll look at the forecasts that have been provided by the private sector forecasters; and you'll look at indicators such as nominal GDP growth, nominal GDP levels, interest rates, employment rates, the price of oil—all these different elements that feed into a projection on a fiscal basis on the fiscal track, but on an accrual basis.
From a very high level—and I might oversimplify this—if you take this TV in front of me, maybe it is worth $1,000. On a cash basis, maybe in year one you need $1,000 to be able to purchase that TV. We in the estimates world, in the supply world, operate on a cash basis, and with departments and so forth. So when we're coming to you with these estimates documents asking for parliamentary approval, it's on a cash basis. On an accrual basis, it's a bit different. That TV might have a lifespan of 10 years, and so it may be $100 a year for 10 years. So the fiscal impact is $100 as opposed to $1,000.
Again, it's an oversimplified example, but it gives you a sense that there is a distinction between accrual accounting and cash accounting. The budget reports on an accrual basis, and it provides not only the projection of government spending but also changes in the projection for, say, the fiscal balance—what the surplus or deficit might be projected in any given year—on the basis of the accrual projection. However from a supply standpoint, we basically are coming forward with main estimates and supplementary estimates that are seeking the cash needed to be able to do the operations.
When you look in the budget document, if you looked at the last year, you'd see that it included a reconciliation between the cash and the accrual on an aggregate to give you a sense of how they went from having, say, $300 billion to having about $360 billion on an accrual basis.