Human Resources committee  Not directly in the bill. The department has a number of programs with respect to first nations. They might be able to speculate.

Human Resources committee  Parliament, as Mr. Beaulieu has said, can decide what it wants to do with respect to funding. That's within the parameters of Parliament. I'm sorry, I'm not—

Human Resources committee  Some of this would require program officials to be able to testify with respect to certain programs, and they would be much better placed than Mr. Beaulieu and I to answer questions in the program areas.

Human Resources committee  Again, here we're into the federal spending power piece. In terms of—

Human Resources committee  Just to clarify, what Mr. Beaulieu is speaking about is with respect to the ability of Parliament to establish conditions, etc., on federal funds. We're not expressing an opinion with respect to this bill--whether it adds money, doesn't add money....

Human Resources committee  I just want to clarify what we were directed at for the honourable member Madam Chow.

Human Resources committee  Any time the federal government enacts legislation, you have to look at the legislation already on the books and make sure that legislation fits with what Parliament has just done. That's why we have a long process of developing legislation through the Department of Justice. We touch all these pieces of legislation, and you can have hundreds of changes as a result of one piece.

Human Resources committee  I can't honestly answer that.

Human Resources committee  Correct. We have certain types of programs. We have statutory programs that are set up by legislation and the funds are spent pursuant to that, and then we have programs where the funding comes from the CRF under voted appropriations from this Parliament. So there are two different sorts of mechanisms.

Human Resources committee  I'm not sure I really understand the question.

Human Resources committee  Yes, generally the federal programs that operate such as that, to create national standards, use the federal spending power just in that manner. There is an offer of money to the provinces; under certain conditions a province decides, yes, it is interested and accepts the offer.

Human Resources committee  Parliament, as my colleague said, is supreme with respect to the measures it wishes to take. The SUFA agreement is an executive-level agreement between the provinces and the federal government. It sets out certain processes and certain consultation mechanisms with respect to how the federal spending power is being used in the social programs area.

Human Resources committee  I'll let my colleague speak to the mechanisms here.

Human Resources committee  Are you asking us to express an opinion on the bill itself?

Human Resources committee  Just the federal spending power.