Public Accounts committee  The transport and infrastructure portfolio is truly quite a large portfolio. Let me give you one example. Infrastructure Canada is a department just like Transport Canada under the same portfolio. When the government decided to put the economic action plan in place, when the infrastructure stimulus fund got put in place, there was quite a rush all across the country, at all levels of government, to ensure that we had projects that made sense, but that could be done fast and would actually support the broad objectives.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  In Canada, we are governed by the Blue Sky transportation policy. It's like free trade agreements, but in terms of aviation. We give foreign countries rights to fly into Canada and we get reciprocal rights to fly into their countries. The European Union agreement is an important agreement for us because, as you know, the European Union has many countries, and that means our carriers can have many ports to land in, where they can carry passengers to, and important hub relationships.

Public Accounts committee  On the performance reporting information, we have tabled this action plan. It's mainly an internal action plan for our department. It basically tells you how we have been working on performance reporting. Very importantly, the first thing we did was realign our departmental program activity architecture.

Public Accounts committee  I apologize if that's the case.

Public Accounts committee  First of all, the gateway funds do not lapse and disappear. They are carried from one year to another. The reason gateway funds were not spent is that economies started slowing down, and there were big commitments, like the perimeter highway, as I think it's called, in British Columbia.

Public Accounts committee  Our comments and our action plan were delivered to the clerk yesterday, I was told.

Public Accounts committee  And our opening comments.

Public Accounts committee  Okay. Well, then, please accept our apologies--

Public Accounts committee  Mine would be.

Public Accounts committee  I've been in Transport for eight months. Maybe I missed this policy. Sorry about that.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, we came to this meeting on the understanding that we were going to be talking about the process by which we got to these various reports. We would be happy to come back and do a substantive presentation on transportation issues to this committee if it wishes.

Public Accounts committee  I would actually like to be able to answer the question--

Public Accounts committee  In terms of the gateways and borders initiatives, there are two sets of gateway funding. One of them was specific gateway funding. That was the initial funding on gateways. The concept of gateways is simple. You basically connect your transportation infrastructures so that you can get goods to the market and improve the trade situation of Canada.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I congratulate the committee for this process. I think it gives us additional energy to focus further on our reporting documentation. We really appreciate that. As you said, Mr. Chairman, I have Monsieur Morency with me. He's our chief financial officer.