Mr. Speaker, within months of our taking office, it became very clear that the previous government had left its fiscal house in much worse shape than we had expected, with the deficit having actually risen to $45 billion.
Under the circumstances, we had no choice but to take much more drastic measures than those contemplated in the red book regarding professional services contracts. We immediately realized that a program review had to be put in place to look not only at reducing professional services by 15 per cent but also at ways of realignign many government programs.
By implementing a better idea than the one announced in the red book, we were able to save not only $1 billion but $9.2 billion.