I just wanted to make one final comment.
It's important to keep in perspective that the premise of this committee's report is to enhance the capacity of members of Parliament to scrutinize spending. When we're making our comments, it's all very fine to say that this would be better for Treasury Board, and that isn't it the role of the assistant deputies, directors, and so forth to manage the funds appropriately and report up to the ministers, but that's not what our report was about. Our report was about what the mandate of our committee is, and that is to assist members of Parliament in scrutinizing spending and to make sure the estimates process remains open, transparent, and effective.
There are still some questions up in the air. Treasury Board has made some recommendations. Most of those decisions seem to be appropriate to retaining control by the government and within the bureaucracy, and to keeping costs down. When I look at the hundreds of millions of dollars increasingly spent on outside consultants, I see the spending argument as a fairly weak one.
That's my final comment.