Finance committee  Again I'll have to get back to you on that. I know that the corporation plans to launch its first call for proposals in the coming weeks. I expect the $72 million is connected to that. I can provide you with additional details based on the corporate plan that the corporation file

Finance committee  It is not unusual for there to be a request to Parliament to seek funds for something for a general purpose--a call for proposals--in advance of knowing what those proposals are. I don't think that's extraordinary.

Finance committee  I will come back to you with the details on how those estimates were derived and how that fits into the corporate plan for the coming year.

Finance committee  I don't have a specific breakdown of the $10 million and all the expenses it would be used against. If that's something you'd like particular detail on, I can follow up. In general, the expenditures are being undertaken to establish, as you say, a new corporation. The expenses

Government Operations committee  It was included in the revenue projections for the budget.

Government Operations committee  The case you point to also included a revenue projection from the sale of a government asset.

Government Operations committee  Sorry, my knowledge doesn't go back far enough to.... The examples would come from 1994 and around that period, regarding program review, and 1984. I haven't looked at the budgets from that period to be able to answer your question.

Government Operations committee  The way you pose your question is whether I think it's strange or not. I think that the process for a corporate asset has some similarities to the process for a strategic review. There's an understanding that in the case of a strategic review, there's a program spending base. In

Government Operations committee  I think it's fair to say that after we go through the review process and identify specific assets that warrant more analysis, we will have estimates based on market conditions and we'll make recommendations as to whether this is a good time, in fact, for the government to realize

Government Operations committee  I do not know--

Government Operations committee  --because I'm not familiar with the operations of that particular crown corporation. If it is as you have described, I would suspect that--

Government Operations committee  My presumption is that along with all the other revenue sources of the government, there would be a reckoning of what the pattern of that is over the fiscal year. If there were to be a shortfall on the $4.3 billion, then it would factor into the total revenue picture of the gover

Government Operations committee  There are probably a few reasons for the selection of the departments that were included in budget 2009. One, for the Minister of Finance, it is just simply that he is leading the review and decided that this department, our department, should be included, since he is taking the

Government Operations committee  I think the target for the asset review is both enterprise crown corporations, because they are crowns that undertake commercial or quasi-commercial operations, and real estate as well, because it is an asseted value for the Government of Canada. So it is both components that are

Government Operations committee  I think the answer is no. It is both elements that are subject to the review, but it is just a matter of fact that the Department of Transport has a significant number of enterprise crowns, so it made sense to include that in the first year of the review.