But it was never anything but that. It was in order to achieve the budgetary matters that were set out there, including some of the stimulus matters. Anything in chapter 3 of the economic action plan is eligible for vote 35, and that's what I found very frustrating when in the House people kept on saying that this was somehow equivalent to the Liberal sponsorship slush fund.
This had nothing to do with that kind of unapproved fund, for which there was no oversight by a deputy minister, and it was just a political fund. We still don't know where all that money went to, unlike the case for Treasury Board vote 35. This is all part of a budgetary plan. The reason we required vote 35 was to approve the expenditures prior to June 30. It's as simple as that, and people kept on asking where this slush fund was, where this blank cheque was. I could never understand what people were talking about, because they'd never slow down and actually listen to what was being said.