I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, but the hon. member still is having difficulty understanding. I will do my best.
There is an option of drawing down the carry forward from a previous year's funding in either the first or the final regular supplementary estimates. Carry forward calculations for each program must be provided to and agreed to by the Treasury Board for the inclusion in the supplementary estimates.
I also, as a minister, sit on the Treasury Board when we go through this exercise.
I would emphasize that this is a longstanding and accepted practice. I have just given a number of examples where that is the case. I have identified the actual examples.
The $10 million in the supplementary estimates (A) represents the operating budget carry forward from 2002-03, which has already been approved by Parliament, and therefore does not represent increased funding for the Canadian firearms program.
In this case, the Canadian Firearms Centre is accessing a portion of the Justice's eligible operating carry forward budget for funds already approved by Parliament. This $10 million was for the operating expenditures that were planned for 2002-03 for the Canadian firearms program, which were unable to be completed until 2003-04 but already voted on.
As I have indicated, in April of this year the Canadian firearms program within Justice was transferred from Justice to the Solicitor General within what is called now the Canadian Firearms Centre. This is why the $10 million from the Justice operating budget carry forward is being sought in these supplementary estimates for the Canadian Firearms Centre.
To conclude, there is no issue of new money here. It is simply a transfer of funds already approved by Parliament for Justice. The clerks no doubt will examine this carefully and make a recommendation to our Speaker and the Speaker will arrive at his own conclusion.
It reflects the longstanding, well-established practices for the estimates. There is no question of privilege.
No doubt the House will anxiously await the apology to the Solicitor General for what has been said.