Mr. Speaker, the government has been working assiduously on trying to get a response to the hon. member's question.
In fairness to the government-and I acknowledge that the delay has been significant in this case-the hon. member must be aware that the question asks for information from every government department. There has been real difficulty trying to determine which grants made to persons are grants to businesses. In the sense of the hon. member's question, he asks for grants to businesses. It is often difficult for departments to tell if a grant to an individual was a grant to that person's business or to the individual.
Given the complexity of the question and the numerous departments that have to be canvassed, the hon. member will have to exercise his usual patience and wait until the government gets the answer together.