I wanted to return to a kind of technical question about how the amount in the interim estimates is arrived at. It's not any kind of “gotcha” mission, but we have had a pretty watershed change in the parliamentary process for approval of funds in the last year or so.
Normally, the way it had been done under what was called “interim supply” was that you would take a fraction of the projected budget for the next year and then have that approved as interim supply. In June 2017, changes were made to the Standing Orders and we changed the name from “interim supply” to “interim estimates”. I'm just reading from House of Commons Procedure and Practice, which says that those estimates will be based on a fraction of the current year's estimates, rather than a fraction of the upcoming main estimates, and will be tabled in the supply period ending March 26.
I'm wondering about the nature of the communication that came from Treasury Board to your organization to notify you of that change, that interim estimates would be calculated on a different basis than interim supply. I recognize that you may not be prepared to answer that question. If you have an answer now, that would be great. If you don't, I'm wondering if you could share with the committee any communication to that effect from Treasury Board or from government generally; and if there was no such communication, if you could write the committee just to confirm that's the case.
I'll be happy to start with Monsieur Trottier.