If I may, I will make an attempt to be a little more specific in addressing your concern. In terms of having global figures from every department as to whether there are pockets of problems, we don't have those figures centrally. However, we do know from interacting with these people, from the questions they're asking us on the interpretation of our policies, and also because we interact with our colleagues--the bargaining agents--that there are pockets of difficulty.
You referred to Public Works. I think Minister Fortier explained what was specific to his own department. When I was explaining to you earlier that the deputy ministers are responsible for the delivery in their department, to a certain extent they actually are better placed to speak to the reality of their own department. We, at the central agency, can certainly make every effort to assist, to clarify at our end, to streamline as much as we can, but we do not hold the actual total of all the difficulties that may happen in the system.
It would be inappropriate for me to say that we don't know there are pockets of problems. We know anecdotally where they are. The departments themselves would be able to tell you whether they have a backlog, such as Public Works did when they came and explained to you. We also know that since then they've been working very hard at putting a dent in the backlog. As far as we know they are pretty much up to date. They're slowly, but fairly steadily, reducing the backlog in that department.
That's the limit of what I could speak directly to.