Sure. It's an interesting question. Hopefully, I can give you an answer that makes some sense.
As I mentioned, supplementary estimates (B) are always our biggest. The reason for that is you have a budget in February. Supplementary estimates (A) follow close on its heels, and often there's not enough time to get new budget initiatives into supplementary estimates (A). In supplementary estimates (B), you're starting to see some of the new budget things come about.
When you look at supplementary estimates (B) for the current year, the figure is lower than last year's. Last year we were at $5.4 billion in supps (B) and this year we're certainly under that. I would like to highlight for you that last year's was unusually large. I'm talking whole of government here. The reason last year was so large was disaster financial assistance, $700 million, which if I remember correctly related to the Alberta floods. That was a big chunk of money there. Manuge would be the second piece, which we talked about earlier today. Aboriginal Affairs had a large out-of-court settlement last year. That's why last year's was so big.
If you compare the current year, 2014-15 to 2012-13, those numbers are very much in line, but I don't get too fussed by the amount of supplementary estimates (B), because when you look at year to date, that's kind of a more interesting total, and the trend is that voted appropriations are going down, largely to do with the reductions the government has made, while the statutory continues to go up.
The reason I say I don't get too fussed about supplementary estimates (B) from one year to the next is that sometimes you have a program that expires and it doesn't get renewed in time to make it to the main estimates. The program is renewed, but it missed the main estimates cycle.
To give you an example, a couple of years back we had the RCMP policing program that is done with the provinces and municipalities. It didn't make it into the main estimates because the deal wasn't basically done in time, so you saw a drop in RCMP in main estimates. Then lo and behold, you come along to supplementary estimates and there's a large spike in RCMP. It was because that program was extended and it was simply a matter of waiting until that deal was reached.
I think it's more relevant to look at the total year to date, which you have asked me to do. I think I've made it clear that the voted number is going down largely because of the reductions that are in play. That's not to say there are not some major items in supplementary estimates (B), but I think we've touched on those.