Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think the Member may have misheard me. I was not apologizing for not communicating on this program. I think I communicated fairly well on it. What happened was a misunderstanding about the communications between the Seniors' Society and departmental staff going

up to October 1995 which is before the time I was appointed Minister of this Department, Mr. Chairman. I would like to point out that I think I communicated very well. As I understand our process, each Minister is supposed to take to their envelope committee their budget and to discuss it in detail with them. I did that.

As I said, I do not think any of the budgets, when presented on the floor of the House, had every single reduction initiative highlighted. They could not if we were to get through the budget in the time that we had to get through the budget.

One of the ways this House works is that the committees of the House are delegated to take on some of the detailed work. It is not possible for every Member to get into. The way this has proceeded was done, since I have become Minister, basically as I understand the process is supposed to work. I was not apologizing for a lack of communication. What I did do was apologize to the Seniors' Society because there seemed to have been some miscommunication between my departmental staff and the Seniors' Society. Three of the meetings I am talking about happened before I became Minister, but I still apologized for it and said that it will not happen again.

I would also like to point out that none of the instances that the Member has referred to -- reallocations among budgets -- the Member has not referred to reallocations that happened between the Department of Transportation and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. None of the funds from my Department went to one of those other Departments to assist with any reallocations. I am not sure, when the Member says it should be easy to find the money, that he recognizes that the money does not move outside my Department. Yes, money has moved around within the Department, but we take the capital funds in the same general area. I do not know that it is as easy as some would present to find that $200,000. I certainly have not found it easy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.