Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll just note that we are a bit short of time, so I will try to split my time with my colleague, Ms. Coady. If we have additional time for a second round, that would be great.
Thank you all very much for being here.
You get to choose who is best to answer. My question is not specifically on how you're going to manage the freeze. You've addressed it here, and I want to give you absolute support for conducting a thorough review of what we're doing and how we're doing it, because I think everybody should be doing that on a regular basis.
You said that you will focus on increasing efficiency and effectiveness, on your core roles--and here's the key--and on meeting the priorities of Canadians. I looked at the budgets from 2004-05 through to 2008-09. The budget went from about $14 billion to $14.5 billion, $16 billion, $17 billion, $18.5 billion, and $19 billion plus. I thought we were ending our engagement in Afghanistan in 2011. Historically, when Canada has been at war, we've spent a lot of money being at war. Then, when we've stopped being at war, we have reduced spending rather dramatically.
I'm very curious. I understand that there's this long-term plan, but no longer engaging in what has proved to be a very expensive war strikes me as being something that would end up reducing our costs. Can one of you please explain to me where we should be saving money because we're no longer going to be engaging in Afghanistan the way we are? And thus, what is the real delta in terms of increased allocations for this long-term plan?