Health committee  Sure, just briefly, and then of course we'll have information for the committee following this. The $51 million is broken down as follows: The $22 million is to support discovering social research. When I testified at the committee, I identified that 13 projects are currently in place.

Health committee  I think, as I indicated earlier, we're currently providing funding to the Canadian AIDS Society and a number of other stakeholder groups as well in the HIV community. For example, in Montreal a couple of months ago, there was a large meeting called the Canadian HIV/AIDS Skills Building Symposium, in which over 500 people affected, working on the front lines, came together in Montreal to improve their skills and their capacity.

Health committee  We can provide that information after the meeting, if you'd like.

Health committee  In terms of the timeframe, it was towards January when this was communicated to the applicants.

Health committee  When you say “members of the government”, do you mean officials?

Health committee  Of course, throughout the process, we kept our minister informed that this was being undertaken, that we were undertaking a review, and what the review included. Of course, our advice, as we developed that at lower levels of organizations, the government departments, and the Gates Foundation, was shared with our minister, who was informed about the fact that we felt that--

Health committee  This initiative was to be co-funded by the Department of Health and the Department of Industry—so the Minister of Industry—as well as CIDA, which is under the Minister for International Cooperation. So definitely all three ministers would have been briefed and kept informed of how this process was proceeding.

Health committee  This was, of course, as Dr. Butler-Jones indicated to the committee in March, advice provided up through officials, and it became the Government of Canada's position—

Health committee  With Dr. Engelhardt, discussions were ongoing, and that advice was being generated during the fall.

Health committee  I'll answer the specific criteria, but first I want to say that the applicants themselves, of course, had many strengths. There was a broad range of organizations and partners that each organization mobilized, and that was recognized throughout the letter of intent stage as well as the application stage.

Health committee  In terms of specific criteria, we've given, confidentially, each of the four applicants feedback on all of the criteria that were made available to them at the beginning of the process. Dr. Engelhardt has mentioned that there were criteria in technical areas, in governance, in financial sustainability.

Health committee  Thank you. I'll just take one example of what is often the side that is not talked much about, and that is the involvement of affected communities, people living with HIV. We have a number of projects that we're currently funding. One, for example, is with the Canadian AIDS Society.

Health committee  I can't answer that question with a yes or no.

Health committee  There was no ranking in the external process.

Health committee  The exploratory process did have assessments that found strengths and weaknesses for all the applications.