A good part of what you are describing relies on a relationship of trust. Here is how agreements in education and in the services area work. First of all, the provinces accept the money that is transferred to them by the federal government because we all have shared objectives. There is therefore agreement on those objectives. The provinces provide us with an action plan in which they indicate where they will be allocating the federal funds, and they commit to producing an activity report at the end of their activities, which will be submitted to provincial accountants and authorities for auditing, an activities report that will describe how the money has been spent.
We cannot, of course, as the federal government, sit down and peer over the shoulders of the provincial auditors. The reports they submit to us are authenticated using proper procedures, and it is on that basis that we make the payments.
I would add one thing. There are a great many different mechanisms that exist, and those in immigration, of which I'm not well aware, are no doubt very different from those that I manage in education, but it has happened to me to get calls from colleagues from other federal departments who want to know how we are working in the area of education. One of those people said to me recently “you're a best practice at Canadian Heritage”. It is rare to hear such a thing, which is why I am pleased to repeat it.