Public Safety committee  The reason for my confusion was that within the public safety department, we also have policy work and contribution work to aboriginals and corrections writ large. I was thinking that the reference you made was to Public Safety contributions. Unfortunately, I'm not familiar with the details of Correctional Services operations.

Public Safety committee  Yes, for main estimates.

Public Safety committee  Unfortunately, no.

Public Safety committee  If the number is $100 million, that would be for the department generally, in that vicinity. That's for the entire operations of the Department of Public Safety, a portion of which are the costs of the minister's office.

Public Safety committee  And you'd like to know the main reasons for that.

Public Safety committee  There has been an increase from the government's focus on public safety and emergency management, so there's been a significant increase in the emergency management costs of the department. The department also administers a program for disaster financial assistance, which is a contribution program that it shares with the provinces to reimburse them for costs that are related to natural disasters.

Public Safety committee  Just to clarify, that's the increase in operating costs of the ministry, of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada. It's not an increase in the cost of operating the minister's offices. In fact, there's been a slight reduction imposed by the government on operations of ministers' operations.

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry, I don't know the specific reference you're referring to. This is in the main estimates of Public Safety?

Public Safety committee  I'm sorry. I'm looking at the transfer payments, grants and contributions, and I don't see your reference to the aboriginal payments.

Public Safety committee  It is about prevention. The acronym is about crime prevention through social development. Again, that's a contribution program where the funding is provided to local communities, local groups, or provincial groups to work with disadvantaged women, youth, youth at risk, youth gangs, etc., to try to prevent criminals from developing in the future.

Public Safety committee  The first place would be our website, where we describe the program in detail, but we also work very actively with the Boys and Girls Clubs, the YMCA, and other social action groups. So there's a distribution of individuals who work for this program, spread across the country, who we are continually working with at the local level to help them develop their capacity and develop projects to reduce crime, targeted to individual communities and districts and areas.

Public Safety committee  It's the same sort of topic that Monsieur Ménard was addressing. The support that public safety provides to first nations policing is in concert with the provinces. It's a cautionary program, for which we pay 52% of the costs of policing first nations communities and the provinces pay 48%.

Public Safety committee  I believe it's a policy question. I know the minister responded to the report when it was issued. He had some positive comments as well as some concerns about the conclusion. In any case, it's difficult for us to comment on that report.

Public Safety committee  I think it is best to refer to the public record, particularly because, at the invitation of the committee, we were under the understanding that it was to talk about the Canada Firearms Centre, as well as the main estimates. We appreciate that there are a lot of serious policy issues within the portfolio, but I don't believe we have the people here today to adequately address that.

Public Safety committee  I'm not aware of any estimates. I believe the card would be administered through the passport office or some other facility, as opposed to Public Safety itself, so I'm afraid I can't answer that question.