Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would add that one of the responsibilities I have as a deputy minister is to give full support to the evaluation group. Nothing motivates a team of public servants more than knowing their work matters and they have a platform for making a contribution.
I suspect that every deputy minister could say what I'd say about my own team. They are a very impressive group of young people and more mature people who enjoy their work.
As a manager, you have to get used to losing good people. I don't see my responsibility as being restricted to only Environment Canada, because it is a collective pool, but I certainly see my responsibility as meeting the obligations of the policy to hang on to and recruit as good a team as possible.
The data shows the numbers have increased. We use our people well, in conjunction with contractors. We've been known to recruit contractors when they have done a good job.
I would say that it is a terrific career. In an evaluation unit, there is probably no better way to learn what's going on in a department than to get right in there, from the vantage point of evaluation, work with the managers, and find things out.
These people become very good policy and program people and their careers often take a turn from evaluation into other areas. Frankly, we lose some people from evaluation because of that, but we recruit from other areas of the public service as a result. It's a very complicated situation.