Our budget has a provision for international humanitarian assistance on an ongoing basis. The difficulty with a humanitarian crisis is that the extent is unpredictable and the extent of the response is unpredictable, so there are two mechanisms. This government has used the matching fund, where Canadians have been asked to donate and where the Government of Canada matches resources provided up to a specific amount. In addition, we use the supplementary estimates process to request additional funds.
In the international assistance envelope there is a mechanism called the crisis pool, where we can request additional funds. In our reference levels we have $50 million, which we can access quickly to respond. If the response required is larger than that, we go to the international assistance envelope and we request money through a Treasury Board submission and the supplementary estimates process.