Government Operations committee  I don't have anything to add, Mr. Chairman. The only point I would make is, out of completeness, regarding Madame Bourgeois's question earlier. I think it's important that it be on the record. I made references to the relocation package—I called it that—to be posted on MERX. It

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, as it stands, our ratio is 77:23. I am not questioning how we arrived at this ratio, at that level of coverage. This is due to a government decision which goes back to 1980.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chairman, the ratio of 77:23 is specific in terms of the policy; that's my first point. As for the second point, we have a strategy—

Government Operations committee  I will let Mr. McGrath tell you how the policy came about and what it covers in a couple of moments. Here is my second point. We want to see the ratio of 77:23 change to 75:25. That is the policy, absolutely, and we have a plan. Between now and 2012-2013, in light of the fact th

Government Operations committee  Your question is very clear. The minister knew that the office already existed, but it was located on a top floor. The new office employs people from headquarters. We have about 29 employees. Now, instead of subjecting people who come from far away to security measures, which may

Government Operations committee  Some of the employees who were working out of the 13th and 14th floors are now on the ground floor, thus closer to their clients, of course.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. I understand exactly what you are getting at. I am a bit perplexed, because we made public a document a couple of weeks ago... I have with me the English version of the document; it refers to a business rationale. It's not a business plan, the word "pl

Government Operations committee  The answer to that question has three parts. The first part has to do with the work of the Auditor General and that of the committee. There is what is called the volume of activity within National Defence, the RCMP and the rest of the public service, which is very little. It was

Government Operations committee  I'll let Mr. McGrath address this, if you don't mind.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, we are optimistic, but that is not necessarily because of the numbers. What happened, Mr. Chairman, as far as the lower numbers are concerned, that is, the fact that we went from 19.4 in 2008-2009 to 14.4, and the 3.9 and 1.5 you referred to, is

Government Operations committee  I understand the question. The $100 million, in reality, will total to more than what we would have done. To give you a clear idea, for instance, we had budgeted an amount for the Alexandra Bridge of $50 million or so. If we had not had the AIP increment to the base, we probably

Government Operations committee  I had a chance to fly over and walk not too far from the graving dock, so I had a chance to see it. Believe it or not, I asked the same question: why graving? My folks will help me, but if I remember, it has to do with scraping barnacles. Yes, that's exactly what it is. I didn't

Government Operations committee  On vote 35, as we were doing our financial planning for getting stimulus money--which in our case we call accelerated infrastructure because we're putting that cash on top of the base that we have--we've identified requirements for $100 million. That $100 million is to allow us—a

Government Operations committee  I'll make three points on this. The first point is that Public Works, like most other federal departments, is facing a renewal challenge. This is just a reality. I don't know if committee members know, but our attrition rate through the pensioning of our staff who leave after f