I would remind people that COSEWIC is the independent body that does the assessment. For a small budget from the government, they actually lever out a lot of capacity, because many of those people are academics, provincial scientists, and government scientists. We don't pay for their salaries. Their budget is just under $2 million to do the scientific assessment process. Over and above that, we have about $7 million or $8 million in Environment Canada on research to support the kinds of activities, and my colleagues will probably speak to their budgets for science as well.
On March 10th, 2009. See this statement in context.