Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make a comment just to add to what my colleague from Thebacha was saying. I think the department is going to have to re-examine its priorities when it comes to the home owners property tax rebate. If I understand correctly, this is the activity under which that would fall. I think that the property tax rebate has served a very useful purpose. I think, as came out earlier when Mr. Koe was asking questions with the new approach to government housing and increased home ownership, that this government needs to find some way to make people feel better about owning their own homes. This sort of program which was set up to accomplish this could be very important. The department's response to the committee recommendation last year, and last year the Standing Committee on Finance also recommended that this program be improved, I found paternalistic. The approach was that perhaps the rebate had not been passed on to taxpayers. I do not think it is up to the department to make comments about whether or not a municipality may have found a way to get the rebate into the home owners hands and whether or not they have increased taxes to account for the fact that the rebate is coming. The goal is that this government was intending to increase home ownership and by doing that was putting money directly in the home owners hands. It is up to the votes in a municipality to ensure that they are getting good local representation. I just wanted to make the point that I was not impressed to the response to the committee recommendation last year which was in respect to the property tax rebate.
I would like to comment on the system of preparing this document that we are now considering. The Standing Committee on Finance noted, when we were reviewing the individual tasks, the payment in lieu of taxes -- the amount that was put in this budget for payments to municipalities for payments in lieu of taxes -- did not show any increase over what was provided last year. The Minister advised that this was because inflationary increases were not put in, but rather that the government waited until municipality mill rates were set and then would come back to the Legislature with supplementary requests for funding. I think it makes it difficult for us, as a Legislature, to assess a budget if we do not get some kind of accurate forecast. While I recognize there is no way the government could predict what mill rates would be at the municipal level, I do think that a budget is always somewhat of a guess as to where you are going to be throughout a year. I do not think it is entirely unreasonable for people to make an estimate as to what they are going to expand and to present that information to us. I do not know that there is much of an argument in this case to not present a figure that would be an expected figure where in other areas you have done exactly the same thing. It is not really a question so much, Mr. Chairman, as comments on this process. The Minister may care to respond.