Thank you for the question.
WD's core funding has not changed. In fact, it was renewed in budget 2010. I want to reiterate what I said in my speech. The impact of this budget was very important for my department because it was a significant component of WD's funding. It used to have to be renewed every year. It was difficult to plan for the medium and the long term, causing hardship for our external stakeholders.
Budget 2010 removed that uncertainty by making this component of WD funding permanent. That allows us to continue to focus our support on initiatives that will drive the west's long-term success. It was never permanent before.
We deliver programming on behalf of other government departments such as Infrastructure Canada, with economic action plan funding and Alberta and Saskatchewan centennial funding. The main estimates are affected by the timing of additional initiatives and will change when the supplementary estimates are tabled later this year.
But as I said--and I think it's something you should know--it used to be dubious because they didn't know from year to year whether they were going to get funding. Now, there's certainty that they will, because of budget 2010, which has created permanent funding for WD and the other agencies.