Thank you, Madam Chair.
I want to thank you, Minister Guergis, for attending today. I'm pleased that you were able to come. As you are aware, we've submitted a number of requests, and I'm glad you're here today.
Your remarks, for me, have generated many more questions than I had anticipated. I'm going to try to go through them fairly quickly.
You referred to the call for proposals for the community partnership fund as coming. It's now some months into the fiscal year, and I don't know when the call is coming, but I am concerned. We know that the dollars were not fully committed last year. I'm wondering how your department plans to process them so that the moneys can be used and put out this year.
I have a question on the partnerships program. When a partnership program is announced, is it necessary to have the commitments by the partners in place before your funding to the partnership program is given out? I'm concerned about the logistics of that.
Briefly, I'm putting my questions out, and you can take the time to answer them.
The AG's report on gender-based analysis, quite clearly, we all know was very unsatisfactory. She didn't quite put it this way, but the system is basically a mess. She highlighted a number of departments. Some were better than others; Transport Canada, we know, failed the test; she didn't touch on others. What will you be doing with the other departments there?
You referred to the provincial meeting. I have had conversations with some who were there, and I know that one of the overriding issues was the whole issue of early learning and child care. I wonder whether you could speak to that.
I will ask one more and then I'll come back, if I have more time.
I have a list now of all of the proposals. I have gone through them fairly carefully. Some of them are splendid; some of them, in my mind, are highly questionable; and some of them seem to have a great deal of similarity between them. What I'm interested in is how you determine, in your assessment of proposals, what is within federal and what is within provincial jurisdiction.
I'll stop there and then come back, if there is time.