I'd be happy to answer that. In the conversations that we had in the countries I mentioned, we didn't get into looking back, which is exactly what they did at the immediate moment of transition. We were looking at how they made the integrated departments work. They were also candid about what hadn't worked as well and what they needed to adjust as they went along. A couple of them, by the way, have separate technical agencies—Norway, for instance—and they spent a lot of time explaining the boundary problems that were created by having a technical agency that was apart from the foreign ministry that still did development work. Those are some of the specifics that came out.
On transition planning, I'm beginning to put together officials in both departments who are interested and supportive of this work and who bring expertise and knowledge across the whole range of activities of what the new department would cover. Obviously, we're doing this on behalf of the ministers. Personally, I report to both deputy ministers of Foreign Affairs and the president of CIDA at the moment as the first-person nucleus of a transition team. It's a matter of doing a lot of internal consultations, discussions, and analysis of exactly what the resources are of the organizations and where the best fits are.
The goal is coherence and synergy. You need to build structures that are going to get you there. That's exactly what we're in the planning phase working on right now. This is all planning in advance of the bill being passed and becoming law, and the reality taking place. After that happens, on the assumption that Parliament chooses to put that into law, then there's a whole implementation phase, which is where a great deal of discussion can happen internally and externally on business processes, on how you work in specific fragile countries, on how you coordinate these instruments. It's harvesting good ideas from stakeholders and from staff, which is what my colleague alluded to.
That's something we're already anticipating doing. I have to say my focus right now is getting the planning done for what needs to be in place for a new department to be stood up on the first day after the bill is passed.