Mr. Calkins, you're demonstrating a fairly acute understanding of how it works. It's all of the above. It is a continual process.
I work very closely with Mr. Pentney and Mr. Piragoff, officials within the Department of Justice, as we examine programs and program proposals to determine what we can do within the parameters of our budget. We receive, as you would expect, more proposals than we have funding to support, so we have to make informed decisions about how the money is spent.
At the same time, the backdrop that all ministers are facing right now is the commitment to return to a balanced budget in the near term, in 2015. That ever-present sentiment of restraint is something that governments have asked of Canadians and Canadians have asked of us. It is our intent, certainly at the Department of Justice, to stay within the parameters of our spending.
I'm glad to see that we've taken necessary steps to ensure greater accountability and greater transparency. For that reason, I'm able to come before you on a fairly regular basis and answer questions about spending within the Department of Justice. Moving forward, I expect that there is going to be more expectation of this, because once we return to balanced budgets, I think certainly Hon. Jim Flaherty's signal to all of us is that it's the intent to keep budgets balanced in the future.