Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her question. I can answer very briefly that just before the Christmas break my deputy met with his counterparts in the provincial governments to talk about the process they would like to initiate. A meeting was also held in the third week of January with the social service deputies to raise that question.
The response we received back from the provinces is that they would like to wait before they start a formal process until after the budget to be sure on the fiscal parameters.
I would like to indicate to the hon. member that I had a meeting last week with all the social service labour market ministers from the Atlantic provinces.
We had a very good discussion about how we can approach ongoing consultations with the provinces. I will be meeting with other provincial ministers individually over the next couple of weeks. I can confirm for the member that several provinces are quite ready to look seriously at how we can work together for the development of a new social reform package.