Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Funding for calcium is incorporated within the operations and maintenance budget for the program for highways over the years. For many years, that funding was approximately $1 million throughout the system. During the difficult period of dealing with the budget restraint a few years ago, that budget was affected and all parts of the system were impacted by that budget restraint in 1996-97 and post years. The funding that is available now does deal with attempting to preserve the calcium that was in place and wherever possible increasing that. As sections of the highway, for example on Highway 3, are improved we try to take those savings for the kilometres as they are absorbed into the surfacing portion and leave it in the calcium budget overall.
However, on an incremental basis of that nature, the dollars are minimal and, for example, this past year the dollars saved from last year's surfacing were invested strictly into cost increases associated with the contracts for calcium, which of course are subject to inflationary pressure and costs that go up on a regular basis. The objective, of course, is to take any savings from reconstruction and put it back into calcium and, of course, maintain what calcium we have on the system currently. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.