Mr. Chair, I want to thank my parliamentary secretary for his great assistance. He referred briefly to his vast experience in this matter and I will share with all members of the House that being a newcomer in this position, I greatly appreciate the experience and the knowledge of my learned friend.
As he knows and as I said earlier, these main estimates forecast expenditures of about $8 billion. That is a net increase over last year of $178 million. This includes funding for the Indian residential school settlement agreement, for the first nations water and waste water action plan and also for investments to improve first nations education.
As I am sure my learned friend knows, the mains do not provide a complete picture of the government's investment. Since the mains were tabled, economic action plan 2013 has added $390 million to our budget for programming in job training, education, important community infrastructure and family violence protection.