In the supplementary estimates, we have increases to grants and contributions of $2.5 million, but a decrease to operating expenditures of $4.2 million. I want to focus on that number. You did address it in your last answer, General, but I'd like to hear more about it. You can understand my concern as someone who lived through the Harper cuts, the downsizing at Veterans Affairs, and saw what that did to the people who serve our veterans, not to mention what it did to veterans, including the cutbacks to staff, the closure of offices and whatnot.
I trust you will understand that I will be very vigilant in terms of ensuring that the operating expenditures of the department, the resources available to the department, are there because of what these folks have been through. It also ties in to Mr. Ruff's question about where we are focused. Your number one priority is the backlog, yet in these estimates we see a decrease to the operating expenditures.
What is the nature of those reductions and what do you anticipate the impact will be, given the history within the department?