Finance committee  Yes, it is. The person whom Mr. Young spoke about earlier—Ms. Richard—did excellent work. In fact, if we looked at the hours she put in and the work she did, I think the contract was a bargain. It could have been much more expensive; in other processes, the cost is often a percentage of the salary that will be paid to the person appointed.

Finance committee  Mr. Mulcair, if I may, I think that the answer to that is no. As Mr. Young said, the position description was ready some ten days after the legislation was passed. There was no discussion as to whether the role was a good fit or not in a British-style system. We did our homework and checked where there were budget officers.

Finance committee  It was probably expected that the position would be at the level of an assistant deputy minister, but the discussions did not end up there.

Finance committee  It is about equivalent to an EX-3 position, as Mr. Young said earlier in his presentation.

Finance committee  To my knowledge, there are no such documents. However, members of Parliament may have made individual requests for analyses of that type from our Parliamentary Information and Research Service. But as you know, these analyses are confidential and are provided only to the member making the request, unless he or she formally agrees to share them.

Finance committee  To try to answer your question very specifically, I can tell you that no analysis of the type that you are describing has been done for the moment because we do not have the necessary resources. At this point, the resources allocated to committees and individual MP requests are fully mobilized.

Finance committee  I think that Mr. Young has answered that question. However, I do not believe that this function can be completely operational within six, seven or eight weeks.

Finance committee  It will depend on the requests that come to us from the committees and the members themselves, I think.

Finance committee  Under the legislation that was passed, the PBO will have much greater access to departmental data then is the case right now. The act is very specific on that.