Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, a significant number of people from the defence department are being asked to leave, to retire, and they are being given departure incentives to do so. This is normal when dealing with some 16,500 people in jobs that we need to remove in order to meet the budget commitments with respect to reducing the deficit.
That program has been put in place. They can choose not to accept it if they do not wish to, in which case the workforce adjustment policy would come into play and they would be offered an alternative job. I am talking about the civilians who are roughly 50 per cent of that group.
We have dealt with these people in a most fair and equitable fashion in an attempt to reduce the size, to reduce the budget. At the same time we are providing some protection for our employees which is a priority of the government. If they can be retrained and go into something else, we want to ensure they will have an opportunity to do so.