The important thing to remember is that the Governor General is being asked, on behalf of the government, to achieve important foreign policy objectives by international travel. The amounts for any given visit can range quite considerably depending on the locations visited, the complexity of the visit and the level of the visit. It would depend on whether it's a working visit or a state visit and whether there's a delegation travelling with the Governor General, which often includes parliamentarians, ministers and prominent Canadian experts who are chosen to come and support the Governor General and assist in advancing Canadian priorities in a given country or location.
There are so many factors that it would be very difficult to suggest that an international trip by the Governor General would need to fall into a certain package. I can say that the overall costs are recovered by my office in an amount that is established by the Treasury Board and the federal budget. We work very hard to make sure we are managing soundly those funds, so that there are funds available to support the required transportation and visits abroad by those dignitaries.
While we have uncovered some exorbitant costs, which we hope to bring down in the catering section of the invoices that were released, I can reassure the honourable member and the committee that the overall costs of this visit were in line with similar costs for high-level visits of this nature in the past.