Information & Ethics committee  Under the Parliament of Canada Act, at least given the way it is written, our budget depends on the main estimates. That's all. It must be included in the main estimates because the money ultimately comes from the Consolidated Revenue Fund. Whatever the case may be, the role of Treasury Board is not to contest the budget.

Information & Ethics committee  I think that the objective is to make the distinction between the two existing processes and not to be included in the applied process within the public service or in the case of those who are part of central administration. In our case, this is not the normal process. Instead, it is as if a side door was used to add this to the document.

Information & Ethics committee  Exactly.

Information & Ethics committee  We opened it originally to the public service and didn't qualify anyone. Then we opened it to the public and the two people who got the job were public servants.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, of course, we get many more applications.

Information & Ethics committee  If I may add to that, two of the vacant positions we're staffing are new positions. There was a lot of effort spent on developing the organizational structure, so now we've reached a point where we're ready to staff.

Information & Ethics committee  Very few people actually ask for the overtime; they usually take it in time. We have a very small budget for overtime.

Information & Ethics committee  The appropriations have gone up. There was some money set aside, because when the act came into effect there was an extended mandate. There was up to $3 million made available to our office to increase our budget if we needed it. We never got the full amount. But I do have something here.

Information & Ethics committee  Two more are in compliance still. There's one in corporate and one in communications and policies.

Information & Ethics committee  We use part of it for system development. We invested some money in our website. That's why we're not lapsing the full amount of the reserve. On the O and M side, we're lapsing $300,000. We did use part of the reserve for IT development.

Information & Ethics committee  As indicated earlier, salaries represent the largest item of our $7.1 million budget. In fact, the full salary budget amounts to $4.5 million. That leaves us with a non-salary budget of $1.8 million, an important portion of which is spent covering the cost of administrative services received under the various MOUs.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. Although the expenditures for this fiscal year are still not final, what we have--

Information & Ethics committee  Oh, you meant for 2007-08. I'm sorry. I do have that information. The actual cost for 2007-08 was $3.9 million, and that included the employee benefits plan.

Information & Ethics committee  Although we are waiting for the final numbers to come in, we are expecting to lapse $900,000. I think what we would spend would be $3.6 million, plus the--

Information & Ethics committee  That's pretty much it. These employees are actually starting in the coming week, so at least four will come in shortly.