The strategic review is part of the Treasury Board's expenditure management system. Every fourth year, every department of government and agency is going to have to go through a strategic review. We are coming up to 2010-11, which will be the fourth round. At the end of this round, all departments will have gone through a strategic review.
We have not been formally officially notified by Treasury Board via the Prime Minister and cabinet that we're going to be in this round, although we've anticipated that. We're such a large, complex department that we actually started getting ready for this probably eight or nine months ago. So we built a team inside the organization.
The purpose of the review is to basically go through 100% of our spending programatically and ensure that we can answer a number of key questions, including that every dollar we're spending is aligned to the government's highest priorities and that every dollar is actually achieving value for money, is being spent effectively and efficiently.
The government in the context of strategic reviews has asked every department to identify the lowest 5% of their program spending. Every department that has gone through the process up to now has done that. We are just completing the 100% review of our programs, and we will start an exercise, probably over the next couple of weeks, to look at what is the bottom 5%.
The way the process runs, we will have a preliminary report to the Treasury Board, probably in mid-June if the process stays true to what it has been in the past, and a final report to Treasury Board in agreement on what that 5% is next fall. That's the timeline. That's comprehensive. We have a significant team looking at this stuff, and when it comes right down to it, having been in the Department of Finance and Treasury Board and PCO, it's fair for departments to have to look through and identify. Everybody has a bottom 5% of what they are doing. Everybody has an interest in that 5%, but everybody has a bottom 5%. Collectively with our political masters, obviously we have to come to that conclusion.