Public Accounts committee  Thank you Mr. Chairman. You have asked several questions in your question. I will try to respond as fully as possible. The points that were raised by the audit were in fact identified by Treasury Board Secretariat. That is why, over the evaluation period we reviewed and redrafted the evaluation policy.

Public Accounts committee  Priorities are in fact set by the departments because they are the ones who must establish their evaluation priorities. That being said, under the Financial Administration Act, 100% of grants and contributions programs must be reviewed over a five-year period. Therefore, as I explained earlier, to date more than 65% of grants and contributions programs have been evaluated, if you include 2009-2010.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for this opportunity to speak about the evaluation function in the Government of Canada. As you mentioned, I'm here with my colleague Mr. Alister Smith, Assistant Secretary of the Expenditure Management Sector. Mr. Smith is responsible for my department's Centre of Excellence for Evaluation.

Government Operations committee  Exactly, Madam Chair. Budgets are not being reduced. Rather, the amounts provided for in the fiscal framework, which could have been used to increase departmental operating budgets, will simply not be allocated. Therefore, there will be no growth. No additional expenses will be incurred.

Government Operations committee  You have asked a number of questions. Madam Chair, I would like to address each one separately. As for whether we will be able to cope with the relatively high retirement or departure rate within the public service, I would like to point out that the number of persons who left the public service in 2009-2010 topped 13,000.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, as was indicated in the budget, there were targeted measures. For instance, one measure will limit or reduce the growth of the Department of National Defence's budget. The reduction included in the budget is of $1 billion. The same principle applies to restricting the growth of...

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, that was the second thing I wanted to point out. As far as the targeted measures contained in the budget are concerned, the envelope for international aid...

Government Operations committee  As I indicated in my opening statement, there are three parts to the various measures announced in the budget. The first part contains targeted measures, which aim to limit the growth of the Department of National Defence's budget. I think that you will also see in the document...

Government Operations committee  I am trying to answer your question.

Government Operations committee  Those are the only two which were targeted in the budget.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, we are subject to very strict laws and regulations. We cannot and must not put at risk in any way our employees. We are subject to the Canada Labour Code. We are also governed by regulations and policies that have not been eliminated and that deputy ministers must follow.

Government Operations committee  I think that all of those questions come down to this one, if I can put it that way, Madam Chair, namely whether we are issuing extremely specific and clear guidelines to ensure that the freeze on operating budgets is managed the same way everywhere. Indeed, departments and deputy ministers manage their operation budgets based on a series of rules and guidelines which are issued by the Treasury Board and the Treasury Board Secretariat.

Government Operations committee  I am talking about departments.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  They are included in the list of departments.