PAP flap

In the recent kerphuffle over Publications Assistance Program's funding levels, Heritage's director general of publishing policy and programs Gordon Platt has suggested on Masthead Online [subscription required] that the industry should have known funding percentage decreases were coming in the current fiscal year ... i.e. (as I interpret his comments) that due to the lack of an increase in 2005-06 PAP funding, coupled with Canada Post's Publications Mail price increases, the writing was on the wall.

The only thing being, as far as I can recall, it has been nigh on impossible for Magazines Canada to find out exactly how much of PAP's maximum funding level was actually being used as part of the program. Moreover, I don't think anyone has publicly divulged how much of PAP funding was expected to be (or is being) drawn by the new(ish) PAP on request-circulation copies. Does anyone out there know differently?

Wasn't PAP a "black box" -- its budgetary figure consisting of a maximum contribution amount, the warning bells only set to go off when that ceiling was in imminent danger of being reached (i.e. now)? Or have I missed something?