Okay.
Thank you, colleagues, and thank you to the witnesses.
I'm going to suggest that the witnesses remain. The first reason is that I want to comment on that relocation contract.
I haven't asked any questions today, as chair, but it struck me that this is a very large contract. In my mind, I had the image of a subway train in Toronto packed with people, so many people on it that when it pulled into the station nobody could get off and nobody could get on. This huge relocation contract that exists is so massive—I understand that there are some 20,000 files in progress—that offloading it to a new manager would, in my view, take a whole lot of time. It is so big and so massive that there is almost no ability to change horses, to change drivers, to change subway trains. I think there is some sense that it is problematic for the department.
Now, I don't expect you to answer me, really, with any degree of particularity. We're on the public record, and any miscues by Public Works in any of this can easily give rise to a lawsuit. I just wanted to make the point that this particular contract and the sequencing involved in it may come up as an issue among members.
I'll leave that with you. I'm not going to ask any hard questions here now, but I wanted to signal my interest in this.
I've asked you to stay. We're going to deal with a couple of subject matters. One is the adoption of the estimates. One of the envelopes is Public Works, which is yours. I thought you might like to watch members deal with that motion, which involves $1 billion or $2 billion.
I am going to thank you for the testimony today and for answering questions, and now I'm going to go to the adoption of the main estimates.
The first vote I'm going to ask members to take is that for Public Works and Government Services. This is for votes 1 and 5.
PUBLIC WORKS AND GOVERNMENT SERVICES Department Vote 1—Operating expenditures..........$1,947,477,000 Vote 5—Capital expenditures..................$349,070,000
(Votes 1 and 5, less the amounts voted in interim supply, agreed to)