Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate, Mr. Wouters, your comments as well. None of these questions, of course, has to do with any comment on your ability and the ability of all of the people working in the civil service. We appreciate and we understand that an awful lot of work has been put in. I also want to stress that we, as Liberals, understand the need for speed and understand the effort going on here. You can understand that we also, as parliamentarians, have an obligation to make sure that we look after the accountability on behalf of Canadian taxpayers.
I do want to stress that there is no confusion on our part whatsoever on the difference between the Building Canada fund and the $3 billion as part of Budget 2009. Our point only is that in the understanding of the need for speed--and we do want to support that, provided we have sufficient accountability--it seems just a bit inconsistent with the approach of the government in not having spent earlier money that was allocated. But, to be clear, we understand completely. There's no confusion on our part on the fundamental difference between those two baskets of money.
I have a quick question on the $3 billion. The provision is to have the $3 billion allocated over the course of the three months, not spent, right?