Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.
As the deputy mentioned previously, Transport Canada went through a fairly difficult year and a half or so of making sure that our actual expenditures were matching our appropriations. We took some decisions during that period as to how to manage our funds in the most effective way possible.
During that entire process, I can say that safety oversight was, if not the top priority, certainly one of the top one or two priorities for the department. Through that period, we managed these very challenging issues by controlling staffing. During the control of staffing periods, where there was a critical safety position that needed to be staffed in aviation safety, in rail safety, in any of the other oversight areas, or in some of our other more technical sides of the program, those staffing actions were made and moved ahead. There was a fairly complex set of changes that occurred during that period of time that were adjusted as we went through it, so I wouldn't be able to give you a summary of the very specific details of that.
I can tell you, though, that we are moving forward now this year. Budgets are being delegated, and we are moving back into a more normal time frame.
However, throughout that entire period our safety oversight was our core mandate. That was kept as a primary target, and we did deliver. In fact, our statistics on the actual oversight activities we carried out will support that.