First of all, I stand by my statement. We're increasing defence spending next year over this year by 27%, and that includes the Treasury Board's refocusing on spending.
One of the things that I think are absolutely incumbent upon us when we're spending Canadian taxpayer dollars is our responsibility to make sure that we're spending their dollars well and to look and make sure that we're producing real value for every dollar we invest.
It is entirely appropriate for the entire public service and every bureaucracy to look at how they're spending money, particularly on things like executive travel, or consultant services, or even some professional services. I say “some” because some of them are absolutely essential to our members and our capabilities. We are, in the net, increasing our defence spending by 27%. By the way, that refocusing of spending is not supposed to be easy; it's hard. That's why we do it, because it's hard and it's necessary.
There have certainly been challenges. The military and the Department of National Defence have been doing things a certain way for a long time, and it's the job just to go back and check to make sure we're producing real value for every dollar we invest in defence. We're doing that job, and at the same time we're very significantly increasing the amount of money that will be made available to them to get the job done.