Mark Holland at the Public Safety and National Security Committee

On February 11th, 2009. See this statement in context.

February 11th, 2009 / 4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, and the department officials, for making time to be with us today.

Minister, I wanted to start with something that's become commonplace. We have an enormous amount of fanfare—cheque signings, photo ops—on announcements of different programs. Yet when it comes to delivering the dollars and the programs, there isn't follow-through. Certainly we've seen that happen with infrastructure, and now we're seeing it with crime prevention.

I want to start with a simple direct question. The department had set out for 2007-08 a budget of $43 million for crime prevention, yet it spent only about half of that, $19.3 million. Can you give me an explanation of what happened?

See context to find out what was said next.