Public Accounts committee  We're still in the process of finalizing the numbers, as we noted before, but of the some 4,000 ISF projects, at this point it looks like just a very relative handful of projects did not meet the deadline.

Public Accounts committee  Virtually every project that we did at Infrastructure Canada was done in partnership with a province or a municipality. One of the big goals in the economic action plan was to actually leverage the funding of other partners. For instance, in the case of Infrastructure Canada, und

Public Accounts committee  Maybe I can offer a few clarifications. First, the border infrastructure fund was announced in budget 2001. That's over a decade ago, so it would be difficult for the government to claim a program created 11 years ago to be part of a budget 2009 economic action plan. Second, t

Public Accounts committee  The economic action plan isn't a program, per se. The economic action plan is a title for a series of initiatives. The programs within the economic action plan that were tagged as economic action plan—

Public Accounts committee  —were laid out by the government in 2009.

Public Accounts committee  I'll be really quick, because I'm not sure I understand the question.

Public Accounts committee  Sure. As we talked about at the beginning, the stimulus that was required in the Canadian economy was required right away, certainly to have economic activity generated as quickly as possible. Otherwise we would have been in a situation like a lot of the other G-8 countries, and

Public Accounts committee  I'm not sure I understand your question.

Public Accounts committee  Perhaps I'll start and then I'll turn it over to my colleague at the Department of Finance. The stimulus programs were designed, as we noted, to be timely, targeted, and temporary. So the primary objective of the program was to generate economic activity rapidly. That being said

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. With respect to your comment, I think it's very important, because it's not just the initial jobs that were created during the course of the construction period. That was obviously the impetus for the programs and the impetus for the economic action plan writ large. B

Public Accounts committee  Maybe I'll start and then my colleague from Industry Canada will add to my comments. From our perspective, there were two things that really made this work. First, internal to the civil service, as the Office of the Auditor General noted, there was a tremendous degree of focus,

Public Accounts committee  In order to leave more time for your questions, we decided not to do opening remarks. We thought the Auditor General's opening remarks covered the scope of the audit.

Public Accounts committee  As our colleague from Treasury Board noted, first and foremost there was an expedited approval process, so the memorandum to cabinet and the Treasury Board submission were done very rapidly. I think that was in large part due to the tremendous cooperation we had from our colleagu

Public Accounts committee  Taki Sarantakis, Infrastructure Canada.

Transport committee  Yes, and if it's public transit, it's public transit.