Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for the question, Monsieur Dufour.
We obviously await the decision of the Supreme Court in this area. Once the decision has been made, if the decision is not in favour of the challenge provisions of the act, that's something where the Government of Canada--internally, Health Canada--would obviously meet, discuss, and determine how to go forward from there. If you recall, under the challenge that has been launched, neither the prohibitions in the act nor the establishment of an agency were part of that challenge.
With your permission, sir, I would like to go back and talk about the $12.4 million. The initial budget of $12.4 million involved moneys that were carried forward before the agency was formally established. In our first six weeks of operation we actually spent $134,000. In our first year we spent $5.3 million. So we are not spending our full $12 million. Our expenses will increase as the regulatory program is fully implemented and as we staff up.