With pleasure, Mr. Blanchette.
If I remember correctly, when I appeared here in May, I explained to you that, about three years ago, our department was facing a structural deficit of more than $60 million. Actually, when salary increases were included, we realized that it was close to $67 million. Before Budget 2012, that is, before the deficit reduction exercise, we had already undertaken internal initiatives to reduce costs and cut some staff in order to reduce that deficit by $40 million.
At that point, we used that $40 million figure to adjust the budget and that led to a job losses numbering a little under 300. Some positions were lost in order to deal with the deficit and others were lost as fixed-term initiatives came to an end. When Budget 2012 came around, we had about $27 million to go. The effect of the budget itself in terms of cuts to programs and to the people who run them was that the staff cuts affected 38 people.
So if you are asking me very specifically how many people had their positions eliminated as a result of the measures in this budget, my answer will be 38 FTEs, full time equivalents. In terms of person-years that were cut in order to confront the additional cuts and our structural deficit of $27 million, it was 242 other positions, for a total of 280.