As for measures of success, we can probably send to the committee some objective numbers about the success of the review of the departments that we are conducting now. I said that we're satisfied with about 90% now, and once we're done, we can tell you what the final result is.
In terms of the scientific advice you talked about and what we do at the public safety department, the scientific advice is not as clear cut as it is in biology. What we're using to manage incidents is something called the incident command system. It's not your perfect incident command system; it is a variation.
The incident command system was developed by firemen. When you get to a fire, somebody who is senior enough takes over, assumes responsibility, and controls everything. What we have with the provinces within the federal government is an approach that is based on this. It means that individual people have accountabilities and there's a coordination place where decisions are made. The Government Operations Centre is one of these places where decisions are made.
Departments and agencies are planning their responses based on a variation of the incident command system. That's the scientific approach. That allows the federal government to have its various operational responses dovetail internally. It also allows the federal government to dovetail with the provinces and the municipalities. It also allows us to dovetail with the U.S., because this approach is fairly well used in the emergency management world.
In terms of signing off, what if we don't agree or if we think more needs to be done? Ultimately, deputy ministers are accountable for their operations. My experience is that very rarely would a good piece of advice, well thought out and expressed at the right level, be ignored.