Human Resources committee  We have no plans to get MPs out of the process. That's a decision that could be made, but the fact is we're not moving towards that. If you sign a list, that's the list that's signed.

Human Resources committee  Point final.

Human Resources committee  With regard to the context of your comment, we agree that MPs are connected to their ridings and understand their labour market. That is why MPs are part of that concurrence process. With regard to the views of some individual officials who believe that MPs should be out, our view is that our directives state that they're in--to concur with our lists, to review the lists we do, and to give input on the lists.

Human Resources committee  MPs are asked to concur, not approve. There is a difference. In the concurrence, we do an assessment, as you know, and we make a list. You've done it for many years. If you for some reason took the assessment and wanted to put everybody at the bottom of the list on the top of the list, to change the principles of the priorities and the assessment, we would then probably have a difference of opinion.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  I think there are two main points. Concerning the budget for 2007, those decisions are made later on in the planning year with regard to the availability of funds. As you know, the minister decided to maintain the budget at $97.5 million for this fiscal year. That's an overall increase of the base budget, so those decisions have to be made later on in the year, as the new fiscal year comes up, in order to see if there is the availability of funds to make that decision.

Human Resources committee  You're right that there was a movement of funds from rural to urban Canada. It was based on the fact that the variables, which were the same as before...the new statistics to those variables were taken into account for the 2001 census data. As the chart in the back of the deck outlines, there has been a considerable shift or demographic change in the youth population in Canada.