Mr. Longfield, I hear you.
I would like to ask you one key question going forward. We're going to have information coming out of the mandate letter. The mandate letter is a very broad document. We're going to be able to get some information, because the minister doesn't just have a letter in his hand that he was given three and a half months ago, he's actually been doing the work. In FedDev, for instance, which I'm a critic for, there have been six announcements, I think, and roughly $75 million or $80 million handed out. They're going to know some really key information; we're going to be able to ask some questions.
Then following that information, in terms of the broad focus, we're going to be able to move to the agencies at the same time and ask how this broad focus is aligning down through the organizations. How are they hitting the ground and implementing what your government is proposing?
Systematically, when you start with the annual review process, the 360 review process, you want to start by saying, what is it that you have given in terms of the marching orders so that we have something to measure against.
What we're going to get now is that they don't know what the measurements are. “We don't know what the goals are. We don't know what the tasks are that you guys have been given. Just tell us what you think you want to do.” All we're going to be doing, then, is inviting these people back after we have the ministers, to say, for instance in southwestern Ontario manufacturing, how is it that you're implementing what the minister, his deputy minister, and the staff in that department have tasked you with?
It's just common sense.