Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Minister, it's good to have you here on estimates again.
I also want to welcome the bureaucrats who are here today.
I'd like to focus my questions on the underlying actions that the ministry is capable of. You're here to get more money for estimates. For the last couple of years that you got supplementary estimates you didn't spend the allocations that were given to the ministry. Last year $1.1 billion was returned and $300 million the year before. You have specific line items and so forth, but particularly in the context of what's being promoted for the next stage, which is a stimulus-inspired spending--you had $9 billion allocated in the 2007 budget--can you tell us to date, as best you can see with the end of the year now in sight, what you will have spent in those two years? What will you have spent this year, actually out-the-door moneys spent? You are here seeking more dollars, and the record so far has been to leave dollars behind and let them lapse. I am wondering if you could give us a sense of where the ministry is headed on infrastructure in terms of getting dollars out the door by the end of this year, compared to the plan you published in 2007.