Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, I misunderstood. That's absolutely right. There was a change in the budget's basis of reporting—

Government Operations committee  Let us take the Canada School of Public Service as an example. The document tabled before Parliament explains to a certain point the cost of each commitment, namely the total expenditures are distributed according to program activities. Each activity is carried out in view of a specific objective.

Government Operations committee  The way in which things are done is, in fact, explained in the reports.

Government Operations committee  It was in late February. It was tabled specifically in order to give more details to Parliament.

Government Operations committee  In fact, for the amount that has gone to zero here on page 4-2 under Canada Revenue Agency, there's a new amount. What has happened is that the various collections activities across the government have been centralized under CRA on behalf of other departments.

Government Operations committee  The chair spoke of the renewal of the current expenditure management system. Regarding the results-based aspect, we intend to step up our current efforts to apply results-based management. For example, since 2005-2006, every department presents specific objectives to Parliament to justify its expenses.

Government Operations committee  As the question pointed out, there are what we describe as “adjustments to reconcile”—to the update, in this case; we update to the latest fiscal framework. Given that these estimates were tabled before the 2007 budget, we're reconciling back to the fiscal update. Secondly, we have what's called a net adjustment, from “net” to “gross” basis of budget presentation.

Public Accounts committee  The government's response is being prepared. It requires cabinet approval, as you'll know, to come back to Parliament and for that proposal. We are well advanced on the proposal, but it does have to go to cabinet.

Public Accounts committee  I can only confirm that the other Westminster parliaments do use a version of supplementary estimates. I can't comment on the relative amounts, except that not all of those Westminster parliament countries are currently in fiscal surplus. Some are; some aren't.

Public Accounts committee  I can't point to anything specific in respect to Public Works, but over the period portrayed here, 2001-02 through 2005-06, Canadian Heritage has a relatively stable share of its overall estimates. During that period quite a number of new spending initiatives in the Canadian Heritage portfolio were announced in a sequence of budgets.

Public Accounts committee  An attempt is made by the central agencies generally; it is more a Privy Council Office function than a TBS function, or even a Finance function. The Privy Council Office does make some efforts to ensure that it has a good sense of the programs that have impending and expiring funding mandates, so that cabinet can take the appropriate decisions, if possible, in the kind of timeline that would allow us to turn around that funding.

Public Accounts committee  I think I'm saying that it's not actually a departmental issue, but a program issue. It's not a department issue per se.

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chair, if I could comment briefly, one of the things we are very strict about under the current expenditure management system is that if cabinet approves an ongoing mandate, there shall be an ongoing source of funds. If cabinet approves spending for three years or five years, then there needs to be a three-year or five-year source of funds.

Public Accounts committee  I'd like to answer that question, if you don't mind. Clearly, a good many programs or initiatives proposed to Parliament in the supplementary estimates are new. Normally, in year two, proposed funding for these initiatives would be set out in the Main Estimates. As the report indicates, it's true that some programs are funded for a set period of time or years, for example, for five years.

Public Accounts committee  We're in the range of $35 million to $40 million over seven years. I think it's $35 million over seven years.