If this legislation passes as expected, then we would have the new department created as of the date of royal assent. Essentially that means there would be a number of issues for day one that need to be addressed, whether they relate to the expenditure management process, for example, or if you would have one chief accounting officer for the department, what the attestation process would be as it relates to financial management, authorities around finance, authorities around human resources, so these types of things. What is it that you need to have in place for day one? That would be the immediate focus.
In addition to that, as I indicated earlier, we are in the planning stages. That would eventually move into an implementation stage as well. During the planning stage there is an opportunity to be as informed as possible, to seek as many views as possible, whether from like-minded...or other country examples, or from our bargaining agents, or however we want to—whether we call it consultations or whatever, it doesn't matter. But there's an opportunity for us to be as informed as possible as we move towards day one.
Part of that, as it relates to day one, is whether there are any organizational structural changes you absolutely need to make, or to what extent you have some flexibility going forward. If you have some flexibility going forward, you'd want to ensure that you're as informed as you can be, as it relates to implementation down the road as well.
So our first deadline, if you will, if I can use that term, would really be around what absolutely must happen for day one, just to ensure continuity of operations. That's our immediate focus from a corporate administrative perspective. Beyond day one would be a series of other timelines, which my colleague Michael can speak to.