Excuse me, but if the minister states that we are on track, he has to be basing that statement on something. I respect the minister too much to think that he is picking the statement out of thin air. He is relying on a report, on facts. So can we have a summary of what he based himself on when he made the statement. That is what I am asking.
I do not see why a central agency which issues orders about budget cuts does not look for quick feedback on the effects those orders are having.
I am asking for an overview, not a detailed picture. If you want to tell us about the effect of the cuts in a more general way than I was able to pick out the information, I have no problem with that. You can tell us how many people have retired, how many people have left, and so on, and then give us the total. I would be satisfied with that information. I do not want anything extremely detailed.
I just want some figures added up, with the total in dollars, so that I can see where we are. We have been doing a program review for four years already and we are having a hard time getting an overall picture of things. Now an order has been issued about reducing the number of employees in the public service and we want to know what it means.
You have to remember that the name of our committee also includes the words “government operations”. So basically, we want to know the effect on government operations. That is why we want the overall picture to start with. We cannot do our job if we do not know how many positions have been eliminated, whether that is just because of retirements, or whether we are talking about positions and programs. I do not even want to go that far. I am just asking you for an overall picture.