Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
Thank you, Mr. Matthews.
I am in full agreement with my colleague.
In the main estimates, one would expect to see the ongoing programs that are approved. So you’ll see funding for those. Certain programs are not approved in time, but it's not because of a lack of will from the department or the Treasury Board Secretariat. For instance, take the parliamentary precinct. These are large projects, very complex, and they are interrelated. When I make sure these approvals are secured, the due diligence is secured. So when we say it's on time and on budget, it's because a lot of work was done behind it. If we don't secure the approvals, we don't put the items for votes so we have access to the cash.
In this case, the timing of the approval for the parliamentary precinct came after the timeline of the main estimates. The other thing is that departments have RPPs, the reports on plans and priorities, to articulate what they plan on spending. In these RPPs you would find the plans of departments—what they intend to spend—but Parliament doesn't vote on RPPs; Parliament votes on what is approved and sealed by the Treasury Board, which is the main estimates plus supplementary estimates.