--and then to the Solicitor General and a new organization created; or, in this case, because we have a new organization, the vote wording authorizes the transfer of $111.4 million, including $10 million for the operating budget carry forward. I will get to that point later.
There are two issues here: One is the transfer within this fiscal year; and the second is the transfer of funds from the last fiscal year to this fiscal year in the operating budget carry forward. Both have already been approved by Parliament, so there is no money.
The member for Yorkton—Melville has suggested that the $10 million for the Canadian Firearms Centre identified in the 2003-04 supplementary estimates (A) is, what he considers to be, new funding. Let me explain why this is not correct.
There is a longstanding practice with respect to operating budget carry forward from one fiscal year to another of up to 5% of a department's main estimates operating budget based on lapses reported in the public accounts.
Each year, to encourage sound management practices, every department is allowed an eligible operating budget carry forward based on lapsed operating resources from the previous year which have been obviously approved by Parliament. They were in the estimates, otherwise they could not be carried forward to the next year had they not been there to begin with.
In the 2001-02 supplementary estimates (A) the operating budget carry forward totalled $540 million--every year there are large quantities of them, all annotated in the way that were described--for 70 departments and agencies. In the 2002-03 supplementary estimates (A) the operating budget carry forward totalled $629 million for 87 departments and agencies. There are quantities of those in the estimates all the time.
If the Speaker would like actual examples of this to show that this the existing practice of the House, I have quantities of them here. For instance, page 36 of the 2002-03 supplementary estimates (A) has: operating budget carry forward, vote 1, $19 million for agriculture--and I will not enumerate the other dollars, just the millions involved; page 38, operating budget carry forward $13 million; page 46, Canadian Heritage department carry forward $1.6 million; in Canadian Heritage, National Battlefields, operating budget carry forward, vote 65, $340,000; and, of course, the Canadian Heritage National Film Board, $2.3 million on page 50.
Those are various examples of the carry forwards that have been made.
Each carry forward does not involve new expenditures. The carry forward is a carry forward of last year to this year within the 5% allowable amount of funding previously voted by Parliament.
The practice that I have just described encourages managers to use good management and planning rather than to use up funds in their budgets. The business of trying to encourage departments not to spend excessively in the month of March and so on was debated years ago.
When we came to power in 1993, it was established that there could be this carry forward of funds already voted. I am sure we all remember that and I think people on all sides of the House supported that initiative. We are not debating whether carry forward is a good or bad idea. I think Canadians generally think it is a good idea. The House has already said it is a good idea. We have adopted it several times in estimates and have done so for a number of years.
The principle of carry forward has two criteria: first, it must be stipulated in the estimates that it is being done, understanding that it is not new money; and, second, there must have been funds carried forward, in other words, already voted on in the previous year.
As we know, the item in question is identified as a carry forward, therefore voted on in the previous year, which means it has already been voted on and therefore is not new money. It is within the 5% allocation, otherwise it would not have been a carry forward, therefore, not new money. It is funding already approved.