Government Operations committee  Thanks for the question. It is a very good question. We are, as I mentioned, facing accelerated retirement now, 3.3% a year on average in recent years. So we do need to concentrate on how we are retaining the knowledge. Part of how we're trying to do it is anticipating retireme

Government Operations committee  We do, of course, provide advice on every budget, as we did on this one.

Government Operations committee  Thanks for the question. I certainly have a plan for my own organization. I have a plan to work with my assistant deputy ministers to look at the staffing we're doing and to make sure we're continuing to staff. I also want to support deputy ministers with respect to human resou

Government Operations committee  Not everything that every ministry does has to be approved by Treasury Board, but of course things that do need to be approved by Treasury Board go through that.

Government Operations committee  There's some latitude for departments to reallocate funding within their own budgets to meet requirements. Speaking for myself, I can reallocate. I can move staff from one area to another without going to Treasury Board. I can look at my program and how I want to deliver it most

Government Operations committee  It's between 55 years and 60 years. I'd like to be able to give the correct figure now, but my colleague and I think it's around 57 years of age.

Government Operations committee  We're not tracking that now.

Government Operations committee  We're looking at efficiencies all the time. The pay modernization project is one such project that should bring enormous efficiencies in the future. We're also doing modernization of our pension delivery system in terms of the basic information technology that goes behind it. I

Government Operations committee  I can simply report, Madam Chair, that those freezes were made.

Government Operations committee  Clearly, before any budget, there is consultation across the board in government.

Government Operations committee  I would not normally talk about details of advice or any other--

Government Operations committee  I think that many Canadians are very interested in working for the public service. The President of the Public Service Commission said that more than a million people applied for jobs in the public service. It would have been the year before last, in the year of recent record. S

Government Operations committee  Yes, that's my understanding.

Government Operations committee  We have various data on people who have changed jobs. To some extent we have broken it down by occupational groups. So it's not a simple answer. If I could commit to getting it to the committee, I'd—

Government Operations committee  Thanks for the question. It's something that we're always generally concerned about in considering recruitment and retention of public service employees. The demographic data, as I mentioned, suggest that people, especially the older half of the workforce, aren't leaving in lar