I have a brief supplemental response. Underlying the question is a very legitimate concern, which is, with all of the money coming and going, are there real reductions. I've been doing this job for a little over a year and I can tell you that I've signed more than 200 letters to individual staff indicating that their position is no longer in existence. We've reorganized significantly in terms of how we deliver, particularly in Marie-Josée's area, in terms of corporate support and in terms of some of the delivery of legal services. Some of those people chose to retire, and some chose to go off on education leave or otherwise, but there are real reductions happening in the department.
Related to a question that was asked earlier, in terms of what drives efficiencies, other than the program side of our department, which is almost half of our budget, the rest of our budget is operating and delivery of legal services, litigation and those sorts of things. That's all people; about 85% of that is people. About half of that is billed out to clients.
We get an appropriation from Parliament and then other departments get appropriations and we bill them. For anyone who has sent bills to clients, they know the discipline that sending.... Give or take $300 million a year for us is recovered from clients directly for hourly bills that are provided, just as in the private sector, and there is a discipline associated with doing that.
There are real reductions. We are reducing our complement—and I'm not here to complain—and we are on a downward track. By next year, we'll have reduced by 330 staff, we'll have reduced our budget by $68 million. In all of that, there will still be money coming and going out the door for program money for the aboriginal justice strategy, as an example, in these supplementaries and other programs that we talked about the last time we were here as well.
In terms of the core of our business delivering legal service, on that side there are real reductions that are happening, and we're driving efficiencies in our system.