Minister, this brings us to the close of the meeting. What I'd like to do is just wrap up. Generally the chair does not take advantage of this, but I have been listening to you, and there are two things that are of grave concern to me. That grave concern is that you've been talking about economic security for women. We had rural women come before us who were accessing the regional offices to help their economic enhancement. We are a little concerned that with the closing of those offices, it is the rural women, the very vulnerable women, whom you're not helping.
Could you give us an idea, in your closing remarks, what you're going to do with the twelve regional offices that you have closed? This is now debilitating women's economic enhancement.
Second, you have been stating—and I read your paper very carefully—that the government has increased the budget by 40% over 2006. In 2007, you increased the budget by 40%, but in 2006 you cut the operational budget by 100%. So if you increased it by 40%, you still have a shortfall of 60% of the budget for the operating office.
If you're not able to answer that question because it is operational, perhaps you can send us some information back on that specific issue, because wordsmithing will not help me. The mindset is that if you cut 100%, yes, year over year you've increased by 40%, but really that doesn't help economic enhancement.
So if you could wrap up your remarks, I'd really appreciate it.
Thank you.