I will start with your last question first. As I responded to your colleague at the outset, one would anticipate—based upon the historical experience around new federal programs, and in particular new infrastructure programs—that the lapse rates would be higher at the outset. That's certainly not out of the ordinary.
As well, in all humility, I will say, as someone who is paid pretty much on a full-time basis to be in the forecasting business, that it's an art, not a science. To the extent that there have been historical lapses, I'm certain that the diligent public servants who work in the office of Infrastructure Canada are certainly incorporating those into their own forecasts. In looking at our own forecasting track record, we often end up getting it wrong, but hopefully wrong for the right reasons. Hopefully, we improve upon our forecasts.
With respect to your point regarding a plan, it's always important to keep in mind that our snapshot was from December 2017. When we sent out the information request before Christmas, it asked departments to get back to us within about five weeks to tell us at a very granular level what projects were in place and what funding has actually been committed. We gave departments and agencies about five weeks to respond. The response rate was pretty low, so we gave them a bit more time. The response rate improved, but it still was a snapshot from 2017. It's entirely possible, as indicated by the minister of the crown, Minister Sohi, that there had been additional projects signed or committed to over that intervening period of time. One would imagine that's the case.
As well, owing to the delays in response from federal departments and agencies, not all of the data regarding commitments was incorporated into our numbers. There is several hundred million dollars from Indigenous and Northern Affairs, as well as ESDC. In the case of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, they responded last week to our December 2017 request, and we weren't able to incorporate that into the overall report. That said, I will say it doesn't change the overall findings. Out of $14.4 billion, we're looking at a couple hundred million.