It does represent a document of seven million dollars over four years, and it is a rather significant document, as most people would understand seven million dollars to be. I know around here that's not even a rounding error, but nevertheless to the people involved it's quite significant. So the real question here is what message the minister was trying to convey.
It appears that the message she was trying to convey in the first instance is actually the message that the parliamentary secretary communicated—namely, that this did not meet the agency's current priorities. He was quite emphatic about it, and only after the fact, when he learned that he was wrong, did he apologize. So the parliamentary secretary to the minister found out after the fact and he at least did the honourable thing.
Similarly, the documents in the order paper questions clearly left the impression that this was a CIDA decision, not the minister's decision, and those were allowed to stand for now over a year. The effluxion of time would surely move one to believe that had we not actually brought a motion, a motion in privilege, we would still be misled as to what the import of these documents might be. Is that a fair observation?