Sir, it's no comment whatsoever on the government's...certainly no value judgment with respect to the government trying to restrain spending. We take that as a given that the government has made that an objective.
We're here today--and it's what we've done with our reports--to kind of ask, is there a risk in terms of achieving that? Are there risks in terms of fiscal risks? Are there risks in terms of service-level risks for departments?
As I think I've said before, I think at this committee as well, if you're talking about reducing the size of the public service by perhaps as much as 11,000 per year, we're talking about a core public service of about 220,000, where the Treasury Board is the collective bargaining agent for...we're talking about places like the coast guard, and food inspection, and Human Resources Canada. To lose that kind of...and I've worked in all those departments, which is why I'm comfortable talking about them. To lose significant amounts of people and to assume that there won't be reductions in service levels, or health and safety risks, would be a mistake.