Part of the challenge the department has faced for the last few years is actually living within our means while addressing recommendations coming from various sources. Certainly this committee has been quite vocal in making known the needs of the coast guard, the need for fishery officers, the need for science and scientists, and so on. It's a bit of a balancing act to try to move forward in a manner that puts the resources where Canada and Canadians think they should be.
In terms of the specifics of those numbers, we could get back to you with an analysis, but certainly we are trying to increase, for example, fishery officers. That increase in B.C. still has to be followed up with boots on the ground. We've just graduated one class. There are two more groups of fishery officers going through. We would aim for 30 per class. The first element of those will go to B.C. I think the second tranche will go largely to Newfoundland and Labrador.
Very definitely, the transformational funding, the $99 million, is focused on core delivery and not on administration. So an overall number like that could represent reductions in administrative support staff or whatever, but I can give a more detailed analysis of that.
I think we owe Mr. Stoffer an answer to an earlier question on the habitat program. I can tell you what we have increased in B.C. and so on. We have added some fishery officers over where we were going, and some additional habitat monitors in central and Arctic. I think the issue of where the habitat biologist will land, in light of these increases and decreases, is something that we owe you a detailed response on. So perhaps we could go away and come back with a detailed analysis of those numbers.
Certainly, to be clear, the minister's direction has been crystal clear. He wants to see more fishery officers, and he wants to see more science and more scientists, more money on the coast guard and more money on coast guard vessel time. But we have to live within our budget, so there would be some reductions. Actually, in the last three years we've reduced the department in overall terms by more than 300 FTEs to try to move money from salaries to actual service delivery.