I see quorum, so we can begin.
It's our privilege to welcome Minister Blair, for the first time but likely not the last time, to the meeting of the public safety committee.
Before we invite Minister Blair to address the committee, I want to raise an issue with the presentation of the supplementary estimates.
I've now asked about three or four people to correlate or explain the votes requested and the numbers that are being asked of us.
For instance, the amount for the Canada Border Services Agency in vote 1b is $971,827, but the amount for the Canada Border Services Agency in the table of expenditures is $3.4 million. Similarly, with CSIS, it's a vote request of $13 million, and then it's $12 million. It goes on. The only number that correlates with the vote request is that of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police external review committee, which is $639,278 in both instances.
This is sometimes more mysterious than electing a pope. Why estimates are presented this way, I have no idea. However, over the course of the next little while, if those who can explain this would do so, I'd appreciate it. Members, particularly new members—but members generally—are being asked to vote on estimates that don't seem to correlate with the other explanations.
With that caveat, I'm going to call upon Minister Blair to address us with his remarks.
Minister Blair.