Agriculture committee  The expenditure review committee reductions that were put into place over the period 2005-06 to 2007-08 reduced our budget by about $24 million, so we were not exempt from ERC. In program review prior to that, it was around the time the agency was created, so there was a differe

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, the $113 million in budget 2008 was for two years and for the entire plan. That averages out to about $55 million a year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's component of that in year one is $23 million out of $55 million, and it moves up to $39 million out of $55 mi

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, perhaps I could address the honourable member's question. With respect to the planned spending, I assume you're referring to the numbers in the agency's report on plans and priorities.

Agriculture committee  In the long run, the plan is probably to increase them. We're getting new funding by way of the food and consumer safety action plan, which will require an augmentation of our inspection capacity. Between 2008-09 and 2009-10, our BSE funding will come to its first stop point. We

Agriculture committee  Cam, would you care to answer that?

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, if I could correct that, it's 650 positions. Over the timeframe, probably in the area of 1,100 to 1,200 people have actually gone through those positions. So we would deal with 1,100 to 1,200 accounts.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, this reclassification exercise relates to our EG inspectors, our meat inspector group. Approximately 650 positions were reclassified as a result of a long-standing classification discussion we had with our union representing that group. This goes back to the year 2000

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, the forecasts are put together some time, as you know, before we come to a conclusion in a fiscal year. A lot of our increases, where we're over on our forecast, are due to incremental volume. Our fees, obviously, haven't gone up, due to the moratorium, but we have inc

Agriculture committee  Yes, there is. Again, off the top of my head, I can't give you those answers right now.

Agriculture committee  Yes, we'll get back to you. Just to confirm, you're referring to our DPR for 2006-07?

Agriculture committee  Okay.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our cost-recovery fees are in the order of about $56 million a year, and that equates to between 8% and 10% of our budget.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's about 10%--you're correct--on our base budget. We have the authority in the food inspection act to re-spend those revenues, so that money comes back to us and is re-spent for purposes of food inspection. So it's built into the budgets of our inspection

Agriculture committee  It includes it right now. What you see in the main estimates is what you're being asked to vote on as part of our appropriation. What we've been given authority for is to collect $55 million annually on top of our appropriation, which we use for budget purposes to carry out our

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, the budget for the organic regime has been established at $2.7 million, and that's the amount of money we would be investing as an agency to cover that regime.