I turn to the concerns about savings within the public service. The 2005 budget was identified in your report and is known publicly. It was identified to exact about $11 billion in savings.
Recently the government essentially shelved the report from outside consultants on how to save money in procurement. We've spent $24 million on something we're not going to use. They looked toward the future in terms of the management of the system and the concerns that if we are going to be saving $2.5 billion in procurement and $11 billion generally in the public service, this is going to affect the system, particularly when you look at the capacity to do that. In other words, how are we going to make these savings on one hand and on the other hand not disrupt the public service provided to Canadians?
When you look at the skill sets of the people employed by the public service, when you've examined the priorities of the government, the concerns, the challenges ahead on the fiscal side, how are we doing in terms of meeting those demands with the kinds of people being hired? My main concern is not so much the people who are employed, but the method of the government, and I already highlighted my concerns about outsiders being brought in without consultation with the people working in the public service.
In your opinion--and this isn't something you've studied, but just your opinion--how are we going to be able to find efficiencies? What is the best way of doing that? We've seen the method used recently with A.T. Kearney, which was obviously not the way to go. We have $11 billion from the previous government that we have to find in the next five years. What concerns do you have about that vis-à-vis the public service, and what do you think is the best way of finding efficiencies, if we need to find those savings? How do we go about finding those savings, or should we be looking to find those kinds of savings?