[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, November 8, 1995
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[English]
The Chairman: Order.
We're taking a bit of a break today, not for the witnesses, obviously, but for us, from our examination of Bill C-98, the Canada Oceans Act. As we do periodically, we bring in officials from HRD to get updates as to the status of the TAGS program, because we've come to expect that it's a work in progress. Much of the preliminary information or data that this program was based on has changed pretty dramatically.
Since it deals with the fisheries, although you're the HRD department, you report to this committee.
That being said and done, we have Marcel Nouvet, the senior director general of the human resource investment branch. I understand you're the senior bureaucrat who deals with the TAGS program from sort of an umbrella. As well, we have Paul Touesnard, senior policy analyst with TAGS, and Raylene Johnson, ministerial liaison officer.
I understand you appeared yesterday before the Senate committee. I guess we'll have the same information they had yesterday.
Marcel, it's up to you. You may start.
Mr. Marcel Nouvet (Senior Director General, Human Resource Investment Branch, Department of Human Resources Development): Merci, monsieur le président. I believe my last appearance before this committee was on April 25 of this year, just as TAGS was nearing its first year of completion.
The key issue at the time that I recall discussing at the committee hearing was our response to the Price Waterhouse report, which was the first in-depth operational review we had carried out of the implementation of the strategy. We talked about payment and service to clients and the numerous issues around those two activities. We also talked last time around about how we were refocusing our efforts for the adjustment out of TAGS clients.
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You mentioned that the program is a program in progress. It's work in progress indeed; TAGS is certainly one of the most dynamic programs I've had the opportunity to be associated with.
Since the spring, TAGS has been stabilized. The program is still very much being adjusted to meet ongoing challenges. Throughout the adjustments we have made to TAGS, Price Waterhouse's report has been our guide in adjusting and improving the program.
My opening remarks here are about five to seven minutes long. I thought the first thing I should do is share with you some operational statistics about the program. That material has been handed out to you. It's also being shown on the screen. After that I'll finish with some additional remarks.
In terms of the overview, we have close to 40,000 clients approved for this program. In addition to those, some 12,000 clients had applications that were rejected. The average number of clients in pay at any given time, out of the 39,000 eligible, is about 25,000. The average number of clients working at any given time is about 14,000. The number of clients we have adjusted out through TAGS options is 1,965; that's against the 7,500 adjustment objective we have for clients adjusted as a result of direct interventions by our department.
The total number of clients that have been involved in adjustment activities since the inception of this strategy is around 23,000 to 23,500. I would say at any given time we have about 10,000 people involved in adjustment or training activities. The average duration is about 220 weeks, which translates to 4.3 years. The average weekly benefit is $286 per week.
Just to give you an idea of where clients are involved in adjustment activities, we have a table that's been handed out to you as well. That breaks it down in terms of green projects. We have some 2,000 clients involved in some 160 different green projects.
I'm skipping here, as I go.
We have 164 involved in self-employment assistance. Some 720 have taken advantage of the mobility program. About 16,000 have been involved in training. We have some in universities and some involved in job opportunities and workplace-based training.
The last line is called FOWAP, the adjustment program, also known as the early retirement program, which is just being implemented for fishers and plant workers. We expect that as a result of this some 1,800 people will go on to these programs and thus be part of the adjustment movement within TAGS.
The fundamental objective of TAGS has not changed since its inception. It is to help fishers and plant workers directly affected by the Atlantic groundfish crisis to adjust out of that fishery while providing them with income support.
There are some positive signs in terms of the number of adjustments we have accomplished so far, which is around 1,900, as I mentioned to you earlier. This raises our confidence level in the regions as well as headquarters in terms of our ability to meet the 7,500 overall objective we have for the 5-year period of the program.
Nevertheless, there are two major challenges facing TAGS right now. The first is that adjustment of 50% of TAGS clients out of the groundfish industry. It is a difficult task because of the great pressures on the TAGS budget, which remains $1.9 billion despite the increase in the number of clients over the number that was originally expected. We have 39,000 clients who have qualified. When we started off, we expected to have 26,000.
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The adjustment objective will be met and is being met by focusing investment efforts only on those clients who are clearly committed to adjusting out, and those clients for whom there are reasonable labour market opportunities. We feel this will insure the most effective use of the available funds.
The second major challenge that we have have been coping successfully with over the past couple of years is the budget shortfall. The shortfalls are due to the higher than expected number of qualified clients. That increases the draw on the income support within the program, and therefore reduces what is available for the other components.
This whole financial picture has been exacerbated by the worsening state of the fishery and delays in capacity reduction in the early retirement program. These have also had a minor impact on the deficit.
The ministers announced measures in August to deal with the shortfall that was occurring in the current fiscal year, and these measures were taken as a result of consultation with the industry. They involved reductions in active programming, licensed buy-back and the administration budgets associated with the program. These measures have been applied and will allow us to stay within the budget for this fiscal year.
Right now we are also in the process of examining what has to be done about the remaining shortfall; that is, for the years from 1996 until the end of the program. We have had consultations with the industry and we are in the process of developing options that will go to cabinet to address the forecasted shortfall.
In summary, the budget pressure on the program has complicated our management of TAGS, but we remain confident that we will be able to adjust 50% of the clients out of the fishery, 7,500 of them through our own interventions, and the rest through their own self-drive to adjust out.
Those are my opening remarks, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Trying to keep track of the numbers in the different programs is a bit like Chinese water torture, as much for you as it is for us, I guess.
There have been a number of announcements by both ministers, the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister of HRD, with respect to changes in the program to deal with the current shortfall in the budget. You can do a couple of things for me. First, what was the projected shortfall and how have you balanced your budget for this year? Which programs have you taken the money out of and where has it gone? What was the projected shortfall this year?
Mr. Nouvet: It was $105 million. That shortfall is being addressed through a combination of reductions to the licence buy-back program and the active adjustment program.
The Chairman: Please tell us how much in each program. How much in licence buy-back?
Mr. Nouvet: We have taken $35 million out of active adjustment administration, because we have an administration budget for the program at HRDC, and for the time being the balance has come out of the licence buy-back program.
The Chairman: So $70 million is out of license buy-back.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: When you take it out of licence buy-back, are you taking it out of what was projected for licence buy-back for the current fiscal year, or over the life of the program?
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Mr. Nouvet: Currently, it is over the life of the program, but as you know we are dealing with forecasts that can and have changed on us. In terms of what is actually left in the components as we move to the future year, that will depend on the actual experience we have with the programs, how many people qualify and how many people are in pay. Somewhere along the line the picture could improve and allow us to -
The Chairman: Or could get worse.
Mr. Nouvet: - beef up some of those programs. We think we're dealing with the worst-case scenarios right now.
The Chairman: I'm not going to ask a lot of questions, but it'll be the same line I always ask. Could you go through the four or five programs - five under TAGS? How much has been allocated in each of those regions? I have all the documents here, but for the record, how much was allocated and where have the moneys been adjusted to balance the budget? It is very confusing. We've had HRD here five or six times and each time the numbers are different.
Because the circumstances are changing - there are different numbers - and so that we can be succinct in our questions, can you go through the various options under HRD and Fisheries and Oceans? Tell us what the original budgets were and how they have been adjusted to accommodate the shortfall.
Mr. Nouvet: Mr. Chairman, I don't have those figures with me, so I'm going to speak from memory. You have them with you, so perhaps you can help me along if I'm a bit off base.
One thing that hasn't changed is the $1.9 billion that's dedicated to this program. That remains stable and is constant, and our challenge has been to stay within that $1.9 billion envelope. We have a shortfall - we would have a shortfall if we did not deal with it - because we have 30% to 40% more clients than expected. They are drawing benefits, and the shortfall we're experiencing is all due to the additional income support payments that we must make.
The amount of money that was dedicated to adjustments at the beginning of the program, that is, the funds we had to adjust people out through training, green projects and other types of programs, was $490 million. That $490 million was over a five-year period. The ministers announced in the spring that there was a reduction to that budget of $140 million, which brought down the money HRDC had left for adjusting people out to $350 million.
This year, to stay within the shortfall for 1995-1996, we have reduced our overall budget in adjustment and administration - it was $95 million for adjustment programming, and we have reduced that by $25 million.
The Chairman: I hate to be obtuse here, but I'm dealing with a different chart. When we started this process two years ago, the department gave us a chart. I realize that you don't have it, but maybe we can get it copied after I refer to it. It deals with adjustment measures and the budget for those adjustment measures. I realize those numbers have changed, but we have to try to keep track of how they're changing and whether they've changed to such a degree that some of these components can't do their job.
This was revised as of 19 March 1994. You get adjustment measures, five years: youth under 21, $39 million; youth 21 to 25, $171 million - this was how you presented it to the committee - self-employment, $40 million; skills training, $412 million; relocation, $74 million; green projects, $551 million; community employment, $75 million; capacity reduction, $300 million; older worker adjustment, $67 million; transition, $33 million; literacy training, $10 million; community development, $50 million; HRD administration, $78 million, for a total of $1.9 billion.
These things have changed over the course of the program, so I'm trying to get us focused on where those changes are so that the questions we ask are based on a comparison of where we are today as opposed to where we were projected to have been.
Mr. Nouvet: If the figures you just related to me do total $1.9 billion, then those are the figures.
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When we talk about what we have in our adjustment budgets, we very much treat that as a single-drawer approach. It's a melting pot; we have a pot of money. I think at the time the program was developed you had to have some notional allocation to the different components of the program that HRDC administered. We now have a pot of money and it's up to individual offices. They are not limited by budgets within individual components. What drives them is the emphasis on results and the number of people they must adjust out. So they use the funds available to them to the best of their ability and in the most cost-effective way to achieve the objective.
I would believe, based on what I know about the planning done for this project, that we have invested less in green projects than we expected to invest because that has proven to be a more difficult area to work with.
But regions don't have individual budgets for individual components with the adjustment. They have a pot of money that they apply to the different tools that are available.
The Chairman: They have to have budgets. If you have seven different programs or five different programs of adjustment, you have to have budgets because each adjustment program is meant to adjust a percentage of your total out of the fishery.
Mr. Nouvet: Paul wants to make a comment.
That was the intent. I think when you develop a program, you have to make notional allocations to the individual components in order to achieve your adjustment objective with experience. On top of it, with the budget cutbacks we have taken in order to stay within the $1.9 billion envelope, the national allocations we made at the beginning really are not talked about. Individual offices are focused on the number of clients they have to adjust out by the end of the five-year period, and they have that on a -
The Chairman: So each regional office has a figure now that says, you have to get rid of 1,200 fishermen and 600 plant -
Mr. Nouvet: Each office.
The Chairman: Each office?
Mr. Nouvet: Each office has a breakdown of the number of people it is committed to adjusting out.
The Chairman: Can we have a copy of that? I think it would be important for the committee to know.
Mr. Nouvet: I don't have that with me, but we will certainly provide it.
The Chairman: I'd like to see that. Maybe somebody else had that information, but I've never had it.
Mr. Nouvet: It was one of -
Mrs. Payne (St. John's West): Is this fisher people and plant workers?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes. It was one of the recommendations made by Price Waterhouse in terms of the planning, that we had to priorize our clients, take into account the duration on benefits, and then move accordingly.
The Chairman: So on the Bridgewater CEC, HRD would have a list, a number? They would say, here's how many people are drawing benefits; here's how many people we have to adjust out through a global budget of x number of dollars?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right, and that list would be broken down. It's not just an issue of knowing how many you have to adjust out at the end of the five years, but really how many you have to adjust on an ongoing basis to reach that number at the end of the period.
The Chairman: So you're telling us we should change the way we try to measure the success of the project on an ongoing basis. It was based on your program; it was based on your components. Each component was there to assist to adjust out. There were even some numbers attached to some of those things.
Mr. Nouvet: No doubt.
The Chairman: So we should forget about that at this point and just deal with it globally?
Mr. Nouvet: We agreed early in January in consultation with the regions that the only true indicator of the effectiveness of this program would be the number of people we had adjusted out. It was not a question of whether we had spent all the money allocated for green projects or spent all the money allocated for training, but truly we set out to adjust x number of people as a result of our activities. Have we indeed adjusted them and stayed within the budget? Have we adjusted them in the most cost-effective manner possible?
The Chairman: Is it fair to say, though, that most of the adjustments have been made to secure the income support?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes. When you come down to it, the only real non-discretionary shortfall you have within TAGS is the shortfall on income support. From our perspective, of course, income support meets the primary requirement, has to be met, and then you can get on with the other aspects of the program.
But we believe that in the focus we have put with regions and local offices on the number of people adjusted out, we are making the most cost-effective use of the dollars that are available.
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The Chairman: My final question is just by way of example. If you're dealing with the Dartmouth CEC, which deals with the eastern shore, at the Dartmouth CEC they had all of these programs available to them. People could go in and apply for a green project, a community opportunities project. People had to avail themselves of some active component in order to stay on TAGS. Are you telling me that the way it's being done now, people don't have to avail themselves of an active component to remain on TAGS?
Mr. Nouvet: In a way that's right. We have done that because we don't have enough money to cajole everyone into being active. We are priorizing our clients to make sure we still reach the original target of having 7,500 adjust out as a result of our direct interventions.
There are two key criteria, which we think are logical criteria: first, the client must be committed to adjusting out - this is not just training for training; and second, there must be reasonable labour market opportunities for that client at the end of the day. If we're going to train someone in a particular trade and there are no job opportunities in that particular community for that trade, we are establishing upfront that the client will avail himself or herself of the labour market opportunities when the training is completed. If the client is not willing to make that commitment, then we are really reluctant to invest in the client.
The Chairman: But their cheque comes in every month.
Mr. Nouvet: Yes.
The Chairman: The whole premise of the program was that you had to choose an active component. You had to put a plan together and you had to be active in one of those components to continue to qualify for the program. So that's no longer the case.
Mr. Nouvet: That has changed. Experience has shown us that there is absolutely no point in having people go through the motions, as people are willing to do. If you say that in order to receive a cheque you must go for some kind of training or you must participate in a community project, they are just going to go through the motions. There is no commitment, it's a waste of money, and it prevents us from looking after the clients who are really committed.
We are also finding that close to 10,000 clients have effectively adjusted on their own by virtue of finding jobs and relying on those jobs as a source of income.
The Chairman: Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott (Skeena): Mr. Nouvet, you've been talking about numbers for labour adjustment, capacity reduction and so on. In a quick go-through on your numbers, I have a figure of about $900 million that you originally allocated for income adjustment at the outset of the program. Can you confirm that number?
Mr. Paul Touesnard (Senior Policy Analyst, The Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, Department of Human Resources Development): For income support?
Mr. Scott: For income support.
Mr. Touesnard: That's correct.
Mr. Scott: Can you tell me what you've spent to date?
Mr. Touesnard: On income support?
Mr. Scott: Yes.
Mr. Touesnard: In the first year of the program -
Mr. Scott: No, I mean to date, from the time the program started until, say, the end of August or the end of September.
Mr. Touesnard: I can give you an approximate figure.
Mr. Scott: I don't need the last penny.
Mr. Touesnard: In the first fiscal year we spent about $315 million. I don't know the exact figure so far this year, but we're spending roughly $7.5 million a week for this year.
Mr. Scott: So help me out here a bit. Where do you think we're at right now? We're about 18 or 19 months into the program.
Mr. Touesnard: We probably have spent close to $200 million in income support so far this year.
Mr. Scott: So we're over $500 million to date on income support. Would you agree with me?
Mr. Touesnard: Yes.
Mr. Scott: If I take your numbers here, the average number of clients in pay, times the average duration of 220 weeks, times the average weekly benefit, I come up with $1.6 billion.
Mr. Touesnard: You have to consider in that estimate that there are people dropping off the program throughout, so you're a bit high on the estimate. It would be closer to $1.4 billion.
Mr. Scott: I would suggest that my estimate is going to be a lot closer than your original estimate to the final cost of income support by the time this program is over. Would you agree with me?
Mr. Touesnard: Well, you have a year and a half's experience to base it on. You should be closer.
Mr. Scott: Very good.
What I'm coming to here is that if you're going to continue with the $1.9 billion envelope that you refer to, and the income adjustment portion is going to run substantially higher than you projected, you're just plain not going to have the money to go ahead with the capacity reduction and the other components of the program that were announced, and were announced indeed as being very important and very integral to the goals and objectives of the program at the outset.
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Basically, what I'm hearing is that this is just an income support program now. There is no longer any component in here or any ability within the money that you have allocated for capacity reduction. My numbers indicate that you have a 2% capacity reduction so far out of a 50% target.
Mr. Nouvet: If I can answer that, our projections show that we expect to spend $1.4 billion in income support this year, which is greater than what we wanted to spend in the first place. What we had expected to spend -
Mr. Scott: Is that $1.4 billion this year?
Mr. Nouvet: No, over the five-year period.
Mr. Scott: Right.
Mr. Nouvet: That takes into account the attrition rate. Some people are adjusted as we go along. We have adjusted close to 2,000 people to date. It takes into account the people who will go on to the early retirement program. It takes into account the people whose licence will be bought back.
Some licences are not relevant to our department, but I believe Mr. Tobin announced recently that 250 bids had already been accepted. I'm speaking from memory.
Yes, the income support component of the program has grown because we have more clients.
This program had two fundamental objectives. One was to provide people with income support, because this is considered to be one of the worst crises to hit particular regions of the country at any given time. The income support program is there and we have to deal with it.
The other objective was the adjustment. We are still proceeding with fewer funds to do as much as we can on the adjustment side. We are doing that by targeting. Initially, we were targeting 100% of the clients for adjustments. We are no longer targeting 100% of the clients. We're saying we will work with those people who want to adjust out and for whom there are reasonable labour market opportunities.
Mr. Scott: Mr. Nouvet, with all respect, when the program was announced, it was said that one of the key components was capacity reduction. The government was talking about the long-term viability of the industry. That was considered to be very important.
Now what I'm hearing is that no matter how you juggle the numbers around, there just isn't going to be the money available for the capacity reduction. It's not there.
What's going to happen to these people at the end of the five-year term when the money runs out? The industry is going to remain substantially the same as it is right now. There isn't going to be a change as a result of the money that is being reallocated away from capacity reduction.
Mr. Nouvet: There are two things. I can't talk about capacity reduction, because that's a matter that comes under the responsibility of Fisheries and Oceans. I can't talk about the impact of budget pressures on capacity reduction.
In terms of the adjustment of individuals, when we set out, we expected to adjust 50% of the people. We expected that 50% of the clients would be adjusted out of the industry by the time the strategy was over.
We are still on target within what we can control at HRDC. Some 10,000 have adjusted by virtue of finding other ways of making an income. We are still on track to make the target of 7,500 that we set for ourselves in terms of getting people to move to other types of occupations. We can't tell the future, but at the present time we are on track.
Mr. Scott: That's not what I heard. You have a $900 million budget allocation for income adjustment that has gone to $1.4 billion. I could hardly consider that to be on track.
Mr. Nouvet: Income support.
Mr. Scott: Income support, yes. Therefore, the other components of the program have no choice but to suffer. Therefore, how can you meet your targets if you don't have the money to do it?
Mr. Nouvet: In terms of the options that ministers will have to consider, which is the option to stay within the budget, it's clear that for all the options that will be presented, we'll look at all the components we have within the strategy for possible reductions.
But it's also clear that there's absolutely no point in trying to work with someone and sending them on training or an adjustment measure if they don't have income support.
Yes, we have a shortfall that's beyond our control because we have more people who qualified for the program than expected. This happened for various reasons, but we still have to provide them with income support. Yes, capacity adjustment was important, but income support was just as important.
Mr. Scott: Mr. Chairman, the only conclusion I can come to is that the goals of the program can't be met with what we're hearing today. I can't see how capacity reduction can possibly occur.
I would suggest that one of two things have to happen. Either those goals have to be abandonded and forgotten or the program is going to require more money. It's one or the other. I don't see how you can reconcile the two. That would be my observation after hearing this presentation here today. I don't see how it can be any different.
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I think to suggest to people in Atlantic Canada who are depending on the long-term viability of the fishery that the goals the program originally set for itself can still be met in the face of the shortfalls we're seeing is a mug's game with their lives. I suggest that this can't work. That's all I have to say.
The Chairman: I don't say I disagree with you when you deal with a 50% increase in the number of people who qualify for a program, while the dollars are the same.
What did you expect initially for clients? Was it 23,000? You got 39,000. So your budget figures were based on 23,000, yet 39,000 eventually qualified. All of the lofty ideas about getting people to participate in active programming have had to be adjusted in order to provide the income support for the additional people who applied.
This paper we have says that there are 1,965 clients who have adjusted out through TAGS options. I think that must mean the adjustment options at the bottom of the page.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: You mentioned 10,000. So you're saying there are 8,000 who have left on their own without the help of the program?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, we have about 10,000 who have left on their own.
The Chairman: So 10,000 have adjusted out?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: That's certainly not because of the program; they just left on their own?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: The targets you have are for a total of 17,000?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: So 10,000 have gone, but not because of program. They've just done other things.
Mr. Nouvet: I think it's indirectly because of the program, the publicity and the reality coming more quickly to them that the groundfishery was in a deep crisis.
In connection with that, we're concerned about the people who drop off the program because their eligibility runs out. We had, I believe, 3,500 who dropped off on December 31, 1994. They were the NCARP roll-overs who had been carried for six months. More than 90% of them have indeed adjusted and found other work.
Mr. Wells (South Shore): I guess it's fair to say that two years ago, or whenever, somebody underestimated the extent of the collapse. You talked about the disaster or the collapse of the fishery itself. This is perhaps telling us and the rest of Canada how serious the collapse was, even though then we knew it was serious. I think you're telling us, as far as income support and the changes in the program, just how serious it was.
I think it may be underfunded. That's something we may have to look at with respect to reaching all the goals. But rather than perhaps being critical of a program that many people rely on.... We're talking about income support and putting food on the table for people who will be starving otherwise. To suggest that this perhaps is something that shouldn't happen is unfortunate for the people who are having to use this program.
I want to zero in on one aspect, which is capacity reduction. I think that's something we all have to be concerned about. Mr. Scott asked some very good questions with respect to that.
The original budget for that was $300 million. The number of people who have been adjusted out based on the recent buy-out accounted for 250 licences?
Mr. Nouvet: That's my recollection, yes.
Mr. Wells: How much did that cost? Do you know the amount those 250 licences cost?
Mr. Nouvet: No, I don't, sir.
Mr. Wells: Was it somewhere in the range of $31 million? Is that the right number, Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman: That rings a bell.
Mr. Wells: Do we have a new number for that program? Is there going to be a second round? What is the new budget number for that part of the program?
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Mr. Nouvet: I really don't know what the new number is. I think the number, whatever it is, is going to be part of the decision-making that will occur with ministers as they look at how they want to adjust this program from 1996 to the end. That's the next round for them.
Mr. Wells: So who will make the decisions on the final readjustment of numbers?
Mr. Nouvet: Cabinet will make the decision.
Mr. Wells: Okay. In your projections of getting 7,500 people out under this adjustment program, are you anticipating that there will be a second round of capacity reduction in those numbers?
Mr. Nouvet: I believe we are.
Mr. Touesnard: The 7,500 is an HRD goal. So the capacity reduction doesn't affect that part of that amount. It's independent of the DFO goal for capacity reduction.
Mr. Wells: So you can reach your goal of 7,500 even if there isn't a second round?
Mr. Nouvet: The 7,500 does not include the licence retirements that could occur. It does not include the early retirement program of which some 1,800 will take advantage, which is what we expect.
Mr. Wells: So the 250 that you mentioned are not included in this 7,500.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
Mr. Wells: All right. I just want it to be clear.
There was some concern in Nova Scotia about clients being turned down for the adult basic education training. Are you aware of that problem?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, I am.
Mr. Wells: Can you tell if it has been resolved?
Mr. Nouvet: It has been resolved. That was miscommunication.
Mr. Wells: Can you explain to me again for the record what the problem was and how it's been resolved?
Mr. Nouvet: I was more focused on the solution and wanting to be sure that we resolved the problem. But my understanding of the problem is that some 60 individuals, I believe, who were in AB, adult basic education, were told that their training would not continue as a result of the adjustment cuts that we have made this year, the 30% additional that I talked about. That's been resolved in the sense that, when we made those cuts, we had a commitment.
When we talk about people investing in people, if they're committed to training and if there's a labour market opportunity we also recognize that roughly 40% of the clientele has less than a grade nine education. The first step to making them more employable is to give them adult basic education. So we made a commitment when we made the cut that we maintain our current levels in adult basic education, because that's the required essential step to get them into skills training.
When I saw the newspaper clipping, I called the regions. I said this was inconsistent with what we had agreed to. I asked them to fix it. They did. They applied some of their regional funds to address this issue. The training for these people will be continued.
Mr. Wells: Take the sentinel projects. Are you familiar with those?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, I am.
Mr. Wells: How many there are? I assume they're being funded under the green project?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, they are.
Mr. Wells: How many of those are ongoing right now. Do you have those numbers?
Mr. Nouvet: Paul might have them.
Mr. Touesnard: No, I don't. There was a budget for $10 million for this year. I'm not aware how much of that has been spent to date.
Mr. Wells: Are these going to continue?
Mr. Nouvet: That's a good question. They'll be part of the rethink. One of the challenges we have got with the green project is that we believe the objective has to be the creation of sustainable employment. So all the activities we're involved in have to be reviewed against the reductions that we faced. Our focus is on adjusting people out. So you would review the need for green projects in light of your adjustment objective.
Mr. Wells: So the budgeted number of $551 million for green projects obviously has been reduced, but you don't have a new number for that?
Mr. Nouvet: No, I don't have a new number. Quite frankly, when we deal with regions now, we don't go into the individual drawers. They know what their pot is and their objective, which is to adjust people out.
Mr. Touesnard: If I can make a clarification on the table you brought forward at the beginning. The items adding up to $1.9 billion include income support. It's not easy to see from that table how much is income support and how much is active programming. So of the $551 million for green projects, at least half was income support funds. I just wanted to make that comment.
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Mr. Wells: Mr. Scott's original point, which I think had to be made, was that you originally budgeted $900 million, yet you're projecting now $1.4 billion. So you're $500 million over budget on that income support component.
Mr. Touesnard: That's right.
Mr. Wells: The recognition of that has to be said. But again, as I said earlier, it's also a recognition of the underestimation of the extent of the collapse from the beginning.
Mrs. Brown (Calgary Southeast): Mr. Chairman, with all due respect to you and our witnesses here today, I think it's just a disgrace that the Minister of Human Resources Development is not here this afternoon. You, sir, are asked to sit there and defend the indefensible, which the complete and utter budgetary failure of this program. That's my first point.
The Chairman: Mrs. Brown, just for the record, the minister is not here because we didn't ask him to come here; we asked for program directors to come here.
Mrs. Brown: I can't believe you wouldn't have asked him to come here to defend some of this.
The Chairman: Perhaps if you were at the committee more you'd understand that the committee makes the decision as to whom they see. We made a decision that we would invite them.
You have members of your own party who sit on this committee. If you want to make a comment about the witness list, I would advise you to go through them.
Mrs. Brown: This is a personal comment.
The Chairman: That's good, but I want it to be noted for the record that we didn't invite the minister. That's the reason he's not here.
Mrs. Brown: That's fine, I'd also like to speak to the record as well.
The Chairman: You can go for it.
Mrs. Brown: I think this is important for Minister Axworthy, especially when he stands in the House and tries to defend the indefensible. With a discussion at this level and with this kind of detail, I think it's really unfortunate that he's not here to hear it.
The second thing I'd like to say here is that you've used a couple of terms. For clarification, with respect to TAGS being stabilized, you also went on to say that of course we will have ongoing adjustments.
To me, this is not just an issue of semantics. Indeed, it's fundamental to the structure of the program in terms of its long-term commitment, which I understand to be income support.
So I'd like you just to clarify for me what you mean by the TAGS program being stabilized, and then, second, the continuing ongoing adjustment to TAGS.
Mr. Nouvet: I think the Price Waterhouse report, which we discussed at the last committee hearing, made some 30 recommendations that we have since addressed. They were recommendations concerning the state of our systems in order to ensure that correct payments were made to individuals. These were recommendations to improve, in a very drastic way, the communications between NHQ, the regional levels and the individual offices, and to work more closely with the industry and Fisheries and Oceans.
The Price Waterhouse report I believe challenged us already on that point for making sure that we made the best possible use of the dollars that were available to us when we looked at the adjustment activities and that we indeed adjusted the adjustment activities in light of the experience we had with them and their cost-effectiveness.
I don't have the Price Waterhouse report with me, but we have followed up and implemented absolutely everything else, including all the recommendations that were in there.
Mrs. Brown: I appreciate what you're saying.
Mr. Nouvet: We don't have overpayments occurring left and right the way we did at the beginning. Everything's been cleaned up.
Mrs. Brown: Okay, but my point is that I just found it inconsistent in terms of the language you used to say that TAGS is stabilized. I don't see it as having very much stability at all when you also use the term ``ongoing adjustments''. In any event, I appreciate your comments in that regard.
I'd like to focus my questions actually on the budget concerns that we have at this particular point in time. At the outset of the program we were told that we would have a $700-million over-budget. Then, this summer, the ministers, Mr. Axworthy and Mr. Tobin, told us that it would be a $385-million over-budget. They announced a complete review and have since made some changes to the program, allegedly to address the shortfall. Despite this, we have been told yet again that this year's deficit is going to be $105 million.
I guess what the HRD is really asking here is for taxpayers to be responsible for inputting another $140 million into the program, as reported in the supplementary estimates. That's my understanding.
Mr. Nouvet: No, that's not -
Mrs. Brown: Okay, then would you clarify that for me?
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Mr. Nouvet: There was indeed a report that we transferred $140 million from within the program to two other components of the program. That report takes into account the adjustments we had already made last January to the program. We made a series of adjustments to transfer funds. We reduced what we had in adjustment last February from $490 million, the overall envelope, to $350 million. So we had already made an adjustment there.
Then this summer the ministers announced other changes to deal with the remaining $105 million shortfall. So the transfer that occurred not only takes into account what the ministers announced but also the previous announcements they made.
Mrs. Brown: But the announcements did not tell us where that extra $140 million was going to come from in terms of the other programs that were going to be cut to address the budget overrun in TAGS. That is the issue here.
Mr. Nouvet: I think I tried to describe this at the beginning. In terms of dealing with the shortfall, we have made adjustments so far. To live with the shortfall that we expect - mostly for this year, 1995-96 - we have made adjustments. We have made reductions to the adjustment programming, the budgets that we control at HRD.
Mrs. Brown: Can you be really specific, though, and tell me those programs from which the money has been diverted to go into the TAGS program? Because there are programs in HRD -
Mr. Nouvet: No.
Mrs. Brown: You can't give me that detail?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, I can, but the programs from which the money has been diverted are TAGS programs. They are all TAGS programs. That money that's being switched from one area to the other is part of that $1.9 billion envelope we have. No additional funds have been invested in this strategy beyond the $1.9 billion.
So last spring what we did was to take the adjustment component of the program, which is the training, the green projects. We knew it was $490 million. We said we would reduce that to $350 million, which frees up $140 million that you can apply to the income support.
At the end of this summer, the ministers decided, after consultation with the industry, that they would reduce the adjustment programming further. De facto, we reduced our budget for this year, an adjustment in administration within TAGS, by a further one-third. We took that money and transferred it to the income support.
There was a similar approach to the licence buy-back program, to take some of that money there and transfer it so that we could stay within the budget for this current fiscal year.
The next round, or the next challenge, for the ministers is to come up with the changes they want to make to the program in order to remain within the $1.9 billion envelope over the next three years, from April 1996 until the end of the program in 1999.
Mrs. Brown: Thank you for that answer.
On September 6, the ministers announced a complete review of the TAGS program. They announced various changes, as you have discussed. I want to know if you have the conclusions of the review and if it's possible to have a copy of same in terms of the conclusions that were drawn.
Mr. Nouvet: I believe you're talking about addressing the deficit between April 1996 and the end of the program in 1999.
Mrs. Brown: There was a complete review of the TAGS program. It was announced on September 6. Are the conclusions in that review available?
Mr. Nouvet: What we're going to do with the program between 1996 and 1999 is right now in development. It will go to cabinet within the next few months for a decision, because those decisions have to be made by cabinet ministers.
Mrs. Brown: So I as a parliamentarian would not have any access to that at all, then.
Mr. Nouvet: I think right now it's -
Mrs. Brown: An internal document.
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, it's an internal document, and it's going to cabinet. We are preparing a memorandum to cabinet on those issues.
Mrs. Brown: I guess the point I am just trying to make here is that in the House of Commons we have to vote on matters of a budgetary nature. When you're looking at deficits and forecasts, not having information makes it difficult to make decisions that certainly your constituents are going to understand, in the first order.
In the second order, to be making a decision in the House of Commons on expenditures of Canadian tax dollars, it would seem to me within reason to expect that I would have access, that all of us would have access, to the nature of the review and the conclusions drawn.
Mr. Nouvet: Just as we have explained what we have done to stay within the budget over the past two years...and in fact we know we are staying within the budget for this year. We have explained where the reductions have occurred.
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Mrs. Brown: Well, you've seen the conclusions and you've seen the document. I'm just asking why I can't.
Mr. Nouvet: I can explain to you how we have stayed within the budget over the first two years of the program. Once cabinet makes a decision about how they are going to stay within the budget from 1996 to 1999, I believe that as in the past those things will be public.
The Chairman: I think we're dealing with two different things.
Ms Brown, periodically when the department comes here they tell us how they're adjusting within the envelope that has been approved by Parliament - within the envelope - how they're adjusting dollars between various components to stay within the envelope. Mr. Scott's questions and others' are whether or not those moves are taking away from the goals of capacity reduction.
I think the witness is indicating that for the next three years of the program options are being put together for ministers, and that's all they are at this point - options. Those ministers will have to make a decision about how they see the next three years' budget being attached to the various components, all within the budgetary framework that remains.
So if you're referring to documents that have led to the balancing of the books today, any of those documents should be available. I think the other ones are just advice to ministers; they're not a document. There is no document. They might go in and say, well, you can get rid of green or you can cut income support or you can stop your capacity buy-back, but ultimately that is going to be up to ministers. That's what you're saying, right?
Mrs. Brown: But there was a four-week review. On September 6 it was announced there was going to be a complete review, and in mid-October those changes were announced. All I wanted to know were the results of that four-week review.
The Chairman: I think that's it. I think it's that series of releases.
Is that what that would be, the series of releases, the first rounds of bids? It says that instead of $50 million this year, $31 million has been taken. Then it says that they've resolved TAGS funding for 1995-96. That would be the result, right?
Mrs. Brown: And there's no detail, no detail at all.
The Chairman: Not on that one.
Mrs. Brown: We're spending millions and millions and millions and no detail.
The Chairman: I guess it's a matter of debate. We're here today to get the detail, Ms Brown, and I think we got most of it. We found out that some projects are having their funding reduced, some programs this year to be applied to income support.... But it's all up to the Auditor General. None of this is being done behind closed doors.
Ms Payne.
Mrs. Payne: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't want to do any grandstanding here. I want to get some real information that is of value to the people in my riding.
One thing I don't have any figures on here is the number of appeals still outstanding. I'm wondering if you can help me out and let me know what's happening with those.
Mr. Nouvet: If you give me a second, I'll look through that. The number of appeals remaining is 224. We had 11,600 at the beginning. That was part of the noise level; that's part of the stabilization of TAGS I referred to earlier. We had 11,000 appeals; 224 remain to be heard.
Mrs. Payne: Do you have any idea at this time when those will be concluded?
Mr. Nouvet: They are supposed to be concluded by early December.
Mrs. Payne: There's a case, and I'm not sure you would be at liberty to report on this because it may be before the courts; I'm not quite certain at this point. But there are some people on the Port au Port Peninsula and up in northern Newfoundland, wives of inshore fishermen who were dropped, I think, from the program. Can you give me any information on that program, why they were dropped and what the status is right now?
Mr. Nouvet: They were dropped from the program because they didn't meet the basic eligibility criteria, which require an attachment to the fishery.
Mrs. Payne: Do you know any specifics as to why they didn't meet the criteria?
Mr. Nouvet: In some cases they did not fish and indeed were doing other things such as bookkeeping which, being part of a fishing enterprise, is not something that's recognized for the purposes of TAGS. Or they didn't fish long enough and didn't meet the basic requirements. As a result of that, they can't qualify for the program.
Mrs. Payne: Mr. Chairman, I have just one other question at this point. It has to do with some of the other programs, for instance the mobility program and the SEA program. Are they still ongoing and is it the intention to continue to fund these?
Mr. Nouvet: Absolutely. I believe that in the statistics we showed at the beginning we had numbers on SEA, self-employment assistance - 164 to date, and 722, mobility. I believe 500 or 526 of those are Newfoundland. We will continue to rely on that option to adjust people out.
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Mrs. Payne: I have one further question that has to do with the overpayments that have taken place. What's happening with overpayments? Are these payments being called back? Are the recipients being asked to repay overpayments? How many are involved? What are the numbers, roughly?
Mr. Nouvet: The general principle is that we do recover overpayments. We recover them at a rate of 25% of the benefit rate paid to the clients. If there is a hardship situation we deal it and perhaps reduce the clawback. That's the general approach we take to that.
Mrs. Payne: Are any of those payments to people who should not have qualified or at some point after they received the compensation were considered not qualified, or are these strictly overpayments?
Mr. Nouvet: These are strictly overpayments I'm talking about - people who might have misreported earnings or something like that.
Mr. Dhaliwal (Vancouver South): I guess you've been informed that your budget, which was originally set at $1.9 billion - that you have to work within that budget.
Mr. Nouvet: Many times.
Mr. Dhaliwal: I just wanted to clarify that. At the beginning, when this program was put together, a number of assumptions were made. You set up some criteria for people who were attached to the fishery, and if they fulfilled those criteria they would be able to collect an income supplement. What happened was that more people actually fulfilled those criteria than was originally estimated, and by a very large amount.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
Mr. Dhaliwal: At that time you had a choice of either cutting back their weekly benefit to meet your original income supplement or making adjustments in other programs that were part of the overall package. Is that not correct?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
Mr. Dhaliwal: The overall package was also based on a number of assumptions. For example, under capacity reduction you had to make some estimates and assumptions about what prices would be bid for the licences as they came in. So for the capacity reduction part of it, we really don't know what the final cost will be. You have a budget set up to do that, but we don't know what the exact bids will be in terms of what people want for their licences. Is that not correct?
Mr. Nouvet: It's a DFO issue, but I think you're right.
Mr. Dhaliwal: I guess my point is that when the program was set up a number of assumptions were made. Some of those assumptions came true and some of them didn't, and one of them was that the number of people who took up the income part of it was a lot more than you originally predicted.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
Mr. Dhaliwal: And as a result of that you are making changes within that envelope to other programs that were also based on estimates and assumptions.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
Mr. Dhaliwal: For example, you had a green project and you have capacity reduction in all those areas.
Mr. Nouvet: And administration.
Mr. Dhaliwal: Right.
Over the five-year period there may be some positive or negative parts to this budget as well. As you go over the five-year period you'll have to make other adjustments as well. You may find that a number of people are dropping out of the program because they're getting jobs - maybe more than you estimated. So you'll have money coming in that can be used, or the opposite might happen. Is that not correct?
Mr. Nouvet: We're working with a range of options right now. We're trying to project the worst case scenario. We have options to address the middle-of-the-road scenario and to address the worst-case scenario. While the program may require further fine-tuning the year after this next round of consultation with cabinet ministers, we think most of the key adjustments will be made over the next few months by cabinet.
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Mr. Dhaliwal: I would think that any five-year program working with a number of assumptions.... I assume it was understood at the beginning that there would have to be some adjustments. I don't think anybody thought you'd be exactly on target with every program. I would think that with a program of this nature, with a certain amount of uncertainty - those are based on what you wanted to do if all the assumptions you made came true.
Mr. Nouvet: We knew we would have to make adjustments, but we really didn't expect to get 45% more clients than anticipated. That really forces you to.... It's more than fine-tuning. There are major adjustments you have to consider.
Mr. Dhaliwal: Okay, but either way there would have been some adjustments between the programs anyway, from the beginning.
Mr. Nouvet: Yes. When we implemented the program I think we recognized that we would be back on a regular basis to make whatever adjustments would be required as a result of experience.
Mr. Dhaliwal: Thank you.
Mr. Scott: For the record, what is your projected deficit for the entire program right now?
Mr. Nouvet: I don't think we're going to have a deficit because we're going to live within the budget of $1.9 billion. If you're asking me what I think the shortfall would be if we made no adjustments from 1996 on, I think it would be in the $300 million range.
Mr. Scott: With the greatest of respect, you're making adjustments at the present time by taking money out of other components to put into the income supplement or income support side of the program. However, the day is coming quickly when you won't be able to do that any more because you've used up all the money from capacity reduction, labour adjustment and the other components of the program. I have a real concern that you're going to run out of money before you get to the end of your five-year mandate.
Mr. Nouvet: If we didn't make the adjustments, if we weren't engaged right now in a round of designing options for ministers to consider and we just waited to see if the forecast actually materialized, yes, I think clearly we would run out of money before the program finished. However, the options we are now considering take into account what we have left in our budget, and I think can allow us to keep a program that leads to the adjustment of individuals.
Mr. Scott: As committee members who are concerned with the viability of the fishery down the road - and I'm sure you and other members of this committee are too - I believe the serious issue for us is that the announced objectives that were integral parts of the TAGS program now cannot be met with the overruns that we see on the income support side. The capacity reduction targets and licence buy-back part cannot be met. It just can't be done.
It comes back to what I said in my earlier remarks. Somewhere along the line somebody will have to tell these people in Atlantic Canada who are expecting a viable fishery down the road and expecting these targets to be met that it can't be done. If anybody takes issue with me on that, I'd like to hear about it. I don't see how it can be done.
Furthermore, although I haven't spent all the time in the world in Atlantic Canada, I was there and had the opportunity to talk to people who were involved in the fishing industry in many different ways. The point was made to me that there were some people who ought to have qualified for TAGS benefits but were denied, and many more who legitimately did not qualify.
In one case there was a fellow who was running a fish packing plant and 10 of his 30 employees, 30% of his workforce, walked out the door when the TAGS benefits became available to them. They left their place of employment.
I believe the spending controls on the income support side of the program haven't been there, haven't been adequate to address the needs. Because of that, the areas we're concerned about on this committee, such as licence buy-backs, capacity reduction, labour adjustment and so on, can't be met. It can't be done.
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Mr. Nouvet: I'm prepared to comment, Mr. Chairman, if you want me to.
The Chairman: Go ahead.
Mr. Nouvet: At best I think it's premature to try to say the program won't meet its adjustment objective. I guess it's helpful for somebody like me, who sees a bit more of the details of what goes on in the program.... We have adjusted out close to 1,900 people. We think we're on target, based on our current budget, to adjust 7,500 people out of the program through direct HRDC intervention. By the time we've finished, we expect that this program will have adjusted out half of the people. Maybe it won't have adjusted out as many through green projects as we expected, or as many through the licence buy-back as we expected, but we will adjust the same number of people by using perhaps more cost-effective ways of adjusting them out.
Secondly, on the control side, we have a very clear policy that you can't quit your work to go on TAGS. When we have caught these people - and we have to be aware of them, and the issue you've raised has been raised before - we have cut them off. They have left their jobs to receive TAGS, or they have refused a job when it was available to them.
But we can't be there in all cases. It requires the employer to call us, to flag that situation for us, and to give us names. That doesn't always happen.
Mr. Scott: With all respect, I'm a simple person. I come from a business background. I admit that I'm a simple person. But as a business person, in my former life, if I went to my bank with a business plan and then came along 18 months later in the position you're in, do you think my bank would loan me more money?
Mr. Nouvet: We're not asking for more money. We're staying within the budget. But I agree; the bank wouldn't loan us extra money.
Mr. Scott: What I'm saying is that the program, as it was announced and as it was designed, can't work.
Mr. Nouvet: I understand.
It will not work if we apply the program the way it was designed, but I'm very confident that this program will work in terms of adjusting half of the clients we have in there as a result of the adjustments we're making to the different components and the more cost-effective approaches we will take in the interventions we have with clients.
Mr. Scott: Again, with the greatest of respect - and I'll be quiet after this - I don't know how Parliament or this committee can have confidence in the face of the experience and the numbers you are giving us here today.
Mr. Nouvet: I understand.
Mr. Scott: I don't see where we can be confident that things are going to get better from here on in. I just don't believe that's the case.
Mr. Nouvet: Respectfully, though, the track record is what counts. We have stayed within budget in the first year and we're staying within budget in the second year. We're doing a good job of adjusting people out right now, based on the numbers we have.
Whether or not we continue to succeed over the next three years remains a question mark. I'm confident that we will be able to, but in the first two years of the program there's been significant improvement in how the program is administered. It's certainly shown that we can live within a budget, because we have to live within the individual annual budgets we have for the program. We're not borrowing from the future of this program to pay for the present. We're living within the 1995-96 budget, and we're going to live within it.
The Chairman: You know, it's amazing; necessity is the mother of invention. I think what the department has had to do.... I've been a critic of the program, of how it has come about and how it has been administered. In the past there probably would have been one of two responses. One is that you would be announcing that we had to go back to cabinet, as a government, to seek 30%, 40%, or 50% more money, and you'd be condemned. The other is that you'd be cutting people off all over the place, and from down in the field you'd be condemned as being heartless and cold.
But what I'm hearing from you today is that you've come up with a third option, and that is to try to reinvent the program based on the same goals, but a new program with new ways to do it - stay within the budget and keep people from being knocked off the program and literally having nothing to put bread and butter on their tables.
Is that what you're telling us today, that you've done a complete rethink but you're staying within the budget and nobody can criticize you for going over budget? Secondly, you've decided that you have to be more innovative and more targeted in how you approach the program to still meet the objectives of adjusting those people out?
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: So it's basically a new game. The options you are putting to ministers over the next few weeks are on how they can achieve that through changes in the existing program.
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Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: Okay.
Mrs. Payne: A moment ago I was going to say far be it from me to compliment the people from HRD very much.
The Chairman: That has to be a first.
Mrs. Payne: One of the things, as Mr. Scott was talking about - the people who in fact were not receiving the benefits - is that my riding is probably very indicative of the ridings that are most dependent on HRD programs.
I think in my riding probably the reverse happened. Perhaps we were overcautious in making sure that those people who were deserving did in fact receive it to the point where I suppose we erred on the side of caution in perhaps allowing people who did not qualify to receive TAGS programs.
I can safely say that while there probably are some cases that might have been considered as eligible under the program but for some reason or another fell through the cracks, I think by and large it did go the other way to the point where, in fact, this may have been the very reason for the excessive numbers of people. We were in fact being very cautious about those who would be dropped or who would qualify.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Mrs. Brown, do you have another question?
Mrs. Brown: No.
The Chairman: That being said and done, I want to thank you for appearing here today and giving us information.
The only thing I would ask for, if it is available, at the end of year two.... And I know I'm still on program components, but after two years I'm like a Pavlovian dog: if I have been told this is what works, I'll keep doing the same thing. I would ask if you could show us how the numbers have changed within the budgetary envelope.
The last comment I want to hear from you today is whether you could be a little clearer about this budgetary process. The problem Mr. Wells raised had been raised with me as well, that local CEC officials had indicated that ``the training budget was gone because it went over to income support''. What I think I heard from you today is that this is not necessarily the case, that they're dealing more in global budgets.
My question to you is if they are dealing in global budgets then there is no such thing, as long as there's money, as a particular component having no dollars. So if somebody comes to me and says ``Mr. MacDonald, I've tried to get basic skills upgrading but they tell me there's no money'', I can with some certainty say ``There's money there''. Notional allocation within that CEC district for training may have been used up, but there is still enough flexibility that nobody is going to be denied training - if they seek it.
Mr. Nouvet: Generally speaking, you are absolutely right. In the case of skills training, we expect that in the case of such a client he or she is obviously committed to acquiring that skills training.
The second criterion we'd want to see is whether or not there are labour market opportunities for that kind of training. If the labour market opportunities are not in that community, then we are seeking a commitment from the client that they will avail themselves of those labour market opportunities; that is, if they have to, move in order to pursue them.
So in that way we think we are not rejecting anyone. That's the general approach.
The Chairman: You will accept any request for training where it's part of a plan and where there's a reasonable likelihood that there is an employment opportunity at the end.
Mr. Nouvet: That's right.
The Chairman: That's a big move. We used to criticize you for training for training's sake. We give you good marks when we see positive things, because we have been pretty critical in the past.
But is it fair to say that if I ask in my CEC district for somebody to talk to me about what their budget is - and in those numbers you had alluded to you said they have numbers they want to adjust out on both sides, harvesting and processing - those things are available?
Mr. Nouvet: Yes, they are.
The Chairman: And you will be able to provide them to us?
Mr. Nouvet: We will.
The Chairman: Great. Thank you very much for appearing today.
With my knuckle I will adjourn the meeting.