Secondly in that mandate letter was a direction to work on a horizontal basis within government as opposed to the traditional vertical organization of government. Government organizes itself fairly well on a vertical basis. You have a Department of Transport. It deals with all the transportation issues. You have the Department of Health that deals with health issues.
Industry deals with the industry issues.
But the rural file doesn t clearly fit into a particular ministry. Agriculture obviously has a piece of it. Natural Resources, through its mining and forestry interests, obviously has a piece of it. Industry Canada obviously has a piece of it. But no one department has got the whole rural file.