I'd be more comfortable answering that question in English, Madam Chair.
In 2003 there were significant studies around the expenditure review committee, and there were many conclusions from that. One was that information technology could be managed much better in government.
There were several studies that allowed us to pursue various proofs of concept and approaches to confirm a general approach. We are in consultation with industry about that general approach at this time.
There are significant indicators from research, from professional firms like Gartner, as well as information from other provinces like B.C., Quebec--Centre de services partagés du Québec--that show there are significant benefits to pursuing this line of procurement and services.
There are many public policy forums that all say this direction is worthy of pursuing. We're pursuing it, but we're trying to do it in the most consultative way we can so that we know we're doing the right thing for Canadians. There are many benefits. We're talking about not only very significant efficiencies.
Let me briefly explain to you what's involved here.
With regard to network and telecommunications services, everybody knows that when you plug in your telephone or your computer, a whole bunch of things happen. There are wires, there are boxes, there are switches, there is software. When we are replicating all of that, because the departments have a lot of it in a stovepipe-duplicated way, it makes for way too much expense.
We can go to some federal buildings where there is more than one department, and there will be what we call “multiple wiring closets”, multiple sets of wires. We don't need to do this.
We're trying to get the federal organizations to work together to do IT better. It is very complex.