Madam Chair, your colleague asked several questions.
Indeed, deputy ministers all have the same means at their disposal. Standards, policies and degree of flexibility are the same for everyone. Deputy ministers are used to managing increases and decreases, to maintaining critical services and key services and to increasing efficiency. They do so on a regular basis, for instance, by investing in the electronic delivery of services to speed up the processing of applications. If we had not made those investments, which allowed us to reorganize the way Service Canada delivers services, I am sure that the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, for example, would not have been able to hire as many people to deal with the increase in employment insurance applications. Indeed, we had already developed and implemented the necessary measures to meet the increased demand. Similarly, when the volume of applications goes down, we will have to manage this decrease and go back to normal levels. This will have a domino effect with regard to the processing of applications elsewhere.
We also have made many improvements and have reorganized our operations. This is part and parcel of a deputy minister's job. These are the tools we use to deal with a budget freeze.
As I said in my opening statement—I repeat—we have $54 billion in operating expenses, which is probably the highest it has been in the past 10 years. It is a good thing that we are rethinking the way we operate. This often happens when more and more programs, and more and more operational activities, are brought in. So you have to take a step back and see how you can do things more efficiently.
We are discussing this matter with our OECD colleagues, and some governments engage in this type of exercise on a regular basis. Some governments reorganize 10% of their programs each year to ensure that measures, funding and human resources are used efficiently.