Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here. Let me start by challenging you on your statistics. I'm looking at figures taken from a briefing from the Canada Firearms Centre showing robberies using firearms have decreased by 50% since 1974. On the murder rate, the use of firearms in 1975 was 1.26 per 100,000 population. In 2003 it was .51. I'm sure you'll tell me it went up slightly in 2004 and 2005, and you would be correct in that, but it was in the range of a 2% increase.
The actual number of homicides in 1975 as a result of firearms were 292. Obviously, on a population basis it's substantially smaller than in 2003, when there were 161 homicides.
Mr. Minister, those are by way of comments to repudiate your comments about the increase of violence in our society. But let me ask you some questions.
First of all, with regard to the $20 million for programming, that $20 million is actually for two years, is it not? Is it $10 million a year?