Government Operations committee  It's more the latter, more development, but it doesn't exclude orderly implementation.

Government Operations committee  I'll let Mr. Roy talk.

Government Operations committee  I think that Mr. St-Jean would be the best person to answer that question, but I can help. I can give you my view, which is that we will need to make some adjustments, both in terms of the financial specialists, in making sure they have the skills, the certifications, to be able to meet those new requirements, and the managers, who themselves are going to be signing and certifying that they live by their financial results, all the way up to the deputy minister.

Government Operations committee  Yes. I guess making the public service an attractive career option not only for young people who are starting their career but for people in mid-career, as you know, is a challenge as well for a lot of reasons. We have to work on bringing people in from the outside. Recently, for example, we ran a process by which we were looking to see if we could recruit or pre-qualify financial specialists at the senior executive level.

Government Operations committee  Yes, I think all of the government is working on this through the leadership of Charles-Antoine St-Jean, the Comptroller General of Canada. I participate in committees with him; I sit on his advisory committee, and we have spent a fair amount of time on accrual accounting, budgeting and these issues, as well as on moving to audited financial statements, of course.

Government Operations committee  No. It's an estimate. When the public works department put forward the recommendations in terms of procurement savings, they did an analysis of the buying trends and the use of different types of contracting instruments within departments. After that, they came up with an estimate of savings by bringing more rigour through more standing offers, for example.

Government Operations committee  That's right.

Government Operations committee  I think we have to describe this as a challenge the clerk has taken on and has asked all of his colleagues across the public service to take on. In terms of concrete plans, at this point he's looking for all of us to look at what we can and should be doing and to personally become engaged in the problem.

Government Operations committee  No, this is only the costs that are projected for PCO. As I said, for this year $13.5 million is what's in the supplementary estimates, and it is expected that we will come in for another $5.7 million in the main estimates for the coming year. And that would be the total budget that's planned at this point for the commission.

Government Operations committee  No, the $19.2 million is as much as I can tell you at this point. Just to clarify, for the corporate support that we're providing we're charging back small amounts, so it's within that $19.2 million. What I was talking about is if there is time of lawyers working on the file or processing documents that are requested by the commission.

Government Operations committee  Just like we went through with the previous inquiries, we get a lot of access to information requests or parliamentary questions,and then there have to be some estimates done, because as I said, the $19.2 million is a pretty firm number and it will be presented to Parliament as it is with the first supplementary estimates.

Government Operations committee  In fact it is not quite automatic, since it must be voted on.

Government Operations committee  The budget reduction exercise that took place two years ago included various measures to ensure savings in the area of procurement. All departments were given a quota. This represents our quota. It is based on the analysis done regarding procurement and contracts within the department.

Government Operations committee  These are savings associated with the change in size of Cabinet and the available resources for the establishment of ministers' offices.

Government Operations committee  There is an increase of approximately $13.5 million related to the commission of inquiry on Air India. There is another increase that corresponds to funds carried forward from last year in the amount of approximately $6.3 million. There was a slight increase of approximately $2.7 million related to the commission of inquiry on the Arar affair.