Thank you.
You're absolutely correct. It is what it is. The budget process and the supplementary estimates process are significantly different from many provincial budget processes. The mains are not a budget, and sometimes there is some confusion about the provision for programs that have sunsetted and that may or may not be reconsidered for renewal in the budget, which is still some weeks ahead of us.
The main estimates do have three main parts, though. I won't go too deeply into this, but they provide, as you said, the overview for federal spending and summarize the relationship of the key elements of the main estimates. They directly support the Appropriation Acts, again, these estimates having been tabled by the President of the Treasury Board. Part III is, as you have said and as I've outlined, departmental expenditure plans divided into reports on plans and priorities, which are about to come up; individual expenditure plans for each department and agency excluding our crown corporations, of course; and departmental performance reports, which are individual department and agency accounts of results achieved against the planned performance expectation sent out in the RPPs.
Then again in addition to and after the budget, the department has the opportunity through the year with the supplementary estimates to revise spending levels, which allows us to seek authority for spending levels as the year goes on and at different stages in the year. Second they allow us to report to Parliament with information on changes in estimated expenditures and to come to committee to discuss these changes, as I'm always glad to do.
I would reinforce again that a misunderstanding that often occurs is that this is the budget, but in fact it is not. Some of the questions I'm sure that will be posed here today will have to wait until the budget to be appropriately answered.