Government Operations committee  Thank you. I'm happy to describe what we've given him. As the minister mentioned, today we dropped off over 4,400 pages of information on 3,000 projects that were approved under the stimulus fund. What the Parliamentary Budget Officer asked for was two things in September. One

Government Operations committee  What we provided him today is a list of all the stimulus projects approved, where they are, what the project is, the cost of the project, and the federal-provincial contributions. Sorry, I'll get to your answer. What we've indicated to him is that this is the first cycle of cla

Government Operations committee  Thank you for your question. Regarding the Stimulus Fund, the funding is spread among the provinces on a per capita basis. Each province and each territory receives its share of the $4 billion. In Quebec, several programs are in place to receive funding under the Stimulus Fund. F

Government Operations committee  Exactly. It depends on each province's program. For example, in Newfoundland and Labrador, there are several fairly big projects involving water treatment plants. In another province, there may be more provincial projects. For instance, in Quebec, there are several highway projec

Government Operations committee  Yes, exactly.

Government Operations committee  It is not a matter of the money already being spent. Of the $4 billion, $3.3 billion have already been committed for projects. There are $700 million left to complete and approve projects. For example, in Quebec, all of the PRECO programs have cost the federal government $350 mil

Government Operations committee  It would be my pleasure to do so. There are two ways to submit projects in Quebec. First, as I mentioned, you can do so under the PRECO program, which involves putting in new waterlines in municipalities. This is a $700 million program, for which we assume half the costs and Que

Government Operations committee  The municipalities send their invoices to the Government of Quebec, which reviews them. Within the framework of the Stimulus Fund, Quebec and the other provinces make progress reports within a system that is part of the program. They provide updates, indicate how much money has b

Government Operations committee  Yes, that's right. We had the first round of claims in September. Because it was a new program, a new system, when people did their reports and claims, it took some back and forth. We would say that they might have made a mistake here, or they would have the project starting da

Government Operations committee  The information you have, that we gave the committee, is the same information we gave the Parliament Budget Officer at the end of October. Because he asked for claims dated in September and we didn't have claims yet, we couldn't respond to his request, so at the end of October we

Government Operations committee  Yes. Again, there are two things to remember with that information. It gives you a snapshot of projects in July and August.

Government Operations committee  The second thing is, you have the same issue about language. Again, we're managing the program however the proponent has dealt with their application. So in Ontario, if we had French or English applications, that's the language of the claims and the reporting as well, so it won't

Government Operations committee  I don't know offhand. I'll find out and maybe I could come back to you on that.

Government Operations committee  The National Trails Coalition program runs a bit differently than this schematic. It runs through one agreement with the coalition, so there's one contribution agreement. The coalition then goes out and selects the projects, approves the projects, and provides the funding to the

Government Operations committee  That's right.