Let me just say on a personal note, Mr. Chairman, that I am a foreign service officer and I've had six postings, and I have a spouse. I have heard this almost every day of my professional career. So personally I'm very much interested in dealing with the issue as best we can.
There are a number of things we can do inside the department and have done inside the department to provide work counselling, to try to find jobs in the local marketplace where people are posted, to give training on how to find a job, to do all sorts of things like this. Fundamentally, even people who aren't in the foreign service would want to go abroad, as we've heard from Treasury Board. Over a third of the people at our missions abroad aren't from my department now; they're from other government departments, and that is a trend that is going to continue. I expect we'll be down to about 50% of the people abroad being from my department over the course of the next four or five years, given the growth of other government departments.
So for these people who don't join the foreign service and expect a certain lifestyle...many foreign service people expect there's going to be some disruption. They join with their eyes open; let's put it that way. But it's increasingly difficult, because two-income families are now the norm. Second careers or two careers are now the norm, and we're going to have to find a way to deal with it. Perhaps it wasn't as pressing as it was in 1981 and, of course, with these other government departments.
So point one is that we're going to do our best within the department. I have certain authorities; we can do certain things. Secondly, we're working with Treasury Board in the review of the FSDs this time around to engage very, very seriously on this, and I'm hoping we will find some ways to go forward.
There is one issue that has been particularly difficult for spouses, and that's the issue of employment insurance, which has stood in the way of their ability to claim employment insurance either while they're preparing for a posting or when they come back and are searching for a job. This is an issue that goes beyond my department and beyond Treasury Board. It goes to the legislation that has to do with our employment insurance system.
So this thing has to be tackled at a number of levels, and it is an enormous--