Thank you, Chair.
And thank you, Minister, for being with us. It's always a pleasure to see you, of course.
Let me start with the comments you made yesterday in response to a question, when you talked about the issue that these are only estimates. You suggested I should know that, which of course I do. Supplementary estimates during the year would continue to potentially feed additional funds to particular programs and, of course, specifically I'm talking about the food safety and biosecurity risk management program, which, according to these estimates, shows a 32% reduction.
Your response to me in question period yesterday was, don't worry about that, we have additional estimates coming and we'll add money to that.
Let me put that in the context of your colleague at the cabinet table, the President of the Treasury Board. If I could use a colloquial term, I believe he's the guy with the chequebook. He actually said that these estimates would be a harbinger of things to come.
Now I looked up the word “harbinger” because it's a pretty big word. So I looked it up and it's a sense of this is what will probably be coming down the road; you should be prepared for this. So this isn't about preparing for more, Minister. Your colleague at the cabinet table, the gentleman with the chequebook, is saying, “Be prepared for less, not more”.
So in light of your response to me yesterday in question period, when you told me to be prepared for more, your colleague is actually telling you to be prepared for less. So I guess I would ask you, Minister, are you right and Minister Clement wrong, or is Minister Clement right and he just hasn't told you yet that you're not going to get more?