Mr. Chair, again I thank Mr. Byrne for the question. Certainly it's one that has always been before the committee. The first day I sat on the committee it was the first issue we raised, and as a result of that committee, as I mentioned before, with the hearings and with pressures, the government of the day committed an extra $100 million over five years, $20 million a year. That ran out. Last year we made that permanent funding, not an extension of another two or three years, but permanent funding, adding $20 million to the base budget. On top of that we added an extra $11 million. So we have put $31 million a year into new funding. This year we've brought in $45 million over five years to deal with divestitures--because it's like interest on a credit card, soaking away our money--repairing and maintaining, trying to get rid of facilities we no longer need or want.
So we have a few more dollars to use. However, you can argue quite correctly that an extra 20% or 30% or 40%, or whatever we might have today...probably the cost of operating today compared to three or four years ago evens it out. So we're not making a lot more headway than we did. We're keeping our head above water.
Your own comments about the amount of money needed to really bring--if we're going to have very good facilities everywhere.... With the change in fishery, where we're seeing aquaculture becoming pretty important and requiring more facilities or more use of facilities, people going to larger boats, and a return of some of our groundfish stocks, we're seeing more activity than in the past, and we're seeing the shift from smaller communities to larger ones quite often, all requiring new money.
You mentioned Nipper's Harbour as a priority. We have many priorities out there, all equal, and we try to do what we can with what money we have.
Anything that goes on the website, unless it has been approved and okayed through the regular process and through the minister's office, is only a matter of many other jobs we have to do. Nothing is approved until it is approved by the minister, whoever he or she happens to be.
In light of that, when they tell you it's on the minister's desk...anything that comes on my desk doesn't stay there very long. Going to the minister's office is entirely different because that means final scrutiny and a number of levels of checks to make sure everything is in order. It's not something that's done down at the small craft harbours office in St. John's and sent up for signing. It becomes part of the total Canadian picture, the total Canadian budget, and then you go through your advisers, etc. We try to do it quickly, and we are very close.
I agree with you, the quicker we get those things out the door.... Quite often the announcements were made in mid-summer, but our announcements will be made long before mid-summer, and as quickly as I can make them. I won't give you a timeframe, but I will say certainly days rather than weeks or months.