Thanks very much.
Ms. Bittman, I just want to ask you a supplementary question.
First of all, thank you so much for being here. You should of course feel free to say whatever your perspective is.... This is a democratic parliamentary committee. Feel free to give whatever testimony you want.
I want to pick up on the issue about outside consultants. The outside consultants my colleague was referring to cost Canadians something in the order of $20 million. I understand that much of the expertise is in fact already contained in our civil service for many of these services that we're going outside of government to provide at the same time that we're laying off the expertise we have within our public service.
I wonder if you can just give me your opinion about what this says about public administration. Because I think what Canadians expect is that their tax dollars are well spent and that we're providing good public administration. Can you comment on that, please?