Thank you very much, Chair, and my thanks to both our witnesses for attending today. We much appreciate it.
Both of you made reference to the upcoming budget and the pending cuts. I wanted to get your thoughts on the notion that the budget will be coming before readiness is concluded. I'm assuming that the government has not yet decided on readiness. Otherwise, everything we're doing would be moot, and I know the government wouldn't do that to a standing committee. Therefore, I have to conclude that readiness is not yet finalized. Yet the budget cuts are going to start.
By making cuts before we know what readiness looks like, do you think we might have to tailor readiness to the dollars available, which practice has been a problem in the past, as opposed to determining what readiness means and then ensuring that the dollars are there to back it up?
I would say as an opposition critic that there's an argument to be made that the government is putting the cart before the horse. I'd appreciate your thoughts.