Finance committee  The process—

Finance committee  In New Brunswick, we have approximately 100.

Finance committee  No, not since the deficit reduction action plan from 2003 and the strategic review before that. I believe that may have been the number prior to that. It currently stands at approximately 205 for head office in Moncton.

Finance committee  Yes, 205, and 25 or so here in Ottawa, so—

Finance committee  Right—

Finance committee  They do. There is a certain contingent of programs in head office that are pan-Atlantic-focused. For the international business development agreement, for example, the arrangement with provinces, those projects are administered out of head office, as well as some innovation progr

Finance committee  Pardon?

Finance committee  That's correct. I think what's important to underscore.... I must preface my comments by saying that for the 27 years I've worked in government, most of it has been in a regional office. However, I have spent eight years working in various capacities in ACOA's head office, and I

Finance committee  That's fine.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. We are closely monitoring the pilot project and the Atlantic growth strategy. That initiative was announced in July. We are participating in the discussion. I am not saying that we don’t participate in discussions with the provinces beforehand. For a

Finance committee  You mean the energy sector?

Finance committee  We are still closely following the Energy East project. We know that the approval process is currently under way. There is a review of the economic benefits and environmental impacts, which must also be factored in. As for the project—

Finance committee  Other than the clean technologies I mentioned earlier or the development of the smart grid, no other examples come to mind.

Finance committee  There are significant impacts that we would anticipate should the energy east pipeline get approved, and in particular, an impact on GDP for New Brunswick of approximately $1 billion, and some significant job numbers as well in terms of development phase jobs. We expect in the ar

Finance committee  If that were to happen, that would have a very significant impact on the province of New Brunswick, not only because of the numbers that I indicated to you because there are other manufacturing and value-added processes beyond what I indicated here in the numbers. In fact, New Br