That's an interesting point. When a government decides to embark on a cost reduction or efficiency initiative, it owes it to parliamentarians at the very least, and Canadians more generally, to be clear about its objective—what's within scope, what's out of scope, the year when it will begin, the year when it will start to apply, when it will mature and all that—and the criteria it will use to determine what is effective spending and what has to be cut or let go of. I haven't seen anything like that for the exercise for which the government claims credit for things that should happen in the future, but the government claims credit for what's happened in the past. I haven't seen any such criteria for the more strategic policy review that is still to be done.
However, in this strategic policy review that has yet to begin, there is still scope for the government to lay out what's in scope, what's out of scope and what criteria will be used to determine what will be cut and what will not be cut, so that public servants working in these areas or groups or stakeholders who receive or benefit from government spending in these areas have an idea of what to expect.