Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think Mr. Martin's comments were pretty accurate. For most of us it is a very challenging process. You have copious amounts of information you try to sort through and figure out what it all means, and then try to hold government to account in relation to that. There's no question it would be nice if it could be simpler in some way, but the important thing for us is to dig through it and ask you the questions that we can.
This notion that future expenditures are restricted to cabinet confidence, which Mr. Martin is raising, is very disturbing. It seems to me that if the government is saying it's going to freeze certain things but doesn't want to tell us what they are, that's not very transparent. It's telling us it can manage all this. It can balance the books over the next six or seven years and finally get rid of the deficit it has created, but it's not going to tell us how because it tells us that the way it's going to do it and what it's going to freeze is a question of cabinet confidence--you don't need to know, don't worry about it--and that's very disturbing.
Let me turn to the question of the contingency allocation, from which $318 million is being transferred for what's called “miscellaneous, urgent or unforeseen expenditures”. Now, if I recall correctly, the contingency allocation was $1 billion. It is in that range in the 2010 budget. Is that correct? If so, it's about a third of a percent of the overall budget of $280 billion. Is that right?