:
I call the meeting to order, colleagues. We are continuing our review of the 2009-10 estimates.
We have before us today, at our request, representatives of the Privy Council Office, in respect of votes 1, 5, 10, and 25 under Privy Council. We can start there.
Well before the end of our meeting time we will be switching to the issue of appointments, and we have one person. As you know, we're going to review one appointment, and that will wrap up the meeting.
In the absence of any interventions, we'll go to our witnesses, who will present, in an appropriate, short way, the spending plans for the Privy Council under those votes.
We have Simon Kennedy, deputy secretary to the cabinet, and Marilyn MacPherson, assistant deputy minister, corporate services branch.
Whichever one of you wishes, please proceed.
It will be Ms. MacPherson. Thank you.
:
Good morning, Mr. Chair. I am pleased to meet with the members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. As you mentioned, I am accompanied by Simon Kennedy, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet, Plans and Consultation.
We are here today to talk about the 2009-10 Main Estimates for the Privy Council Office. PCO's last appearance before this Committee was in February 2009, regarding the Supplementary Estimates (B) for the Privy Council Office. The Privy Council Office reports directly to the Prime Minister and is headed by the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet.
[English]
The Prime Minister's overall responsibility is to provide leadership in creating and sustaining the unity of the ministry required to maintain the confidence of Parliament. The Prime Minister demonstrates this leadership in two distinct ways: through the exercise of unique authorities as head of government and through the management and coordination of the government's agenda as chair of the cabinet.
The core functions of the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet, and those of the entire PCO, flow directly from these responsibilities. The strength of PCO is in large measure determined by its ability to concentrate its resources on supporting exclusively these two central responsibilities, in addition to helping the Clerk of the Privy Council and Secretary to the Cabinet fulfill his role as head of the public service.
PCO contributes significantly to the implementation of a clearly articulated government policy agenda, coordinates timely responses to issues facing the government and the country, and supports the effective operation of the cabinet and the government. PCO works to maintain the highest professional and ethical standards in the federal public service and ensures that the Prime Minister and ministers within the Prime Minister's portfolio receive high-quality, consistent, appropriate, and non-partisan policy and legal advice and objective recommendations.
[Translation]
PCO has four priorities for 2009-10 and will achieve these priorities as follows. First, support the Prime Minister in exercising his overall leadership responsibility. Through this priority, PCO will continue to support the Prime Minister in one of his key leadership roles, which is to create and sustain the unity of the Ministry.
PCO will carry out the following plans to meet this priority effectively: provide advice on the broad organization and machinery of government, the structure and functioning of Cabinet and its committees, parliamentary affairs and the appointments of principal public office holders; and support strong and integrated management across all government institutions, supporting the effective functioning of Cabinet committees by exercising a coordination and challenge function on policy and legislative proposals from departments and by advising on the management of the Government's legislative agenda.
[English]
PCO's second priority is to focus on key policy in legislative areas and to strengthen medium-term policy planning. PCO will provide advice and support in the overall development and implementation of the government's policy and legislative agendas. More specifically, PCO will support the government's efforts to respond to the global economic recession, provide strong leadership of the economic agenda, and provide economic stimulus; help all Canadians to participate in this country's opportunities; ensure the federal government operates more effectively; contribute to global security and well-being; strengthen the federation and Canada's democratic institutions; develop and implement initiatives aimed at securing our energy future by tackling climate change and preserving Canada's environment; and finally, keep Canadians safe.
The third priority is to support management and accountability of government. PCO will support the government's continued efforts to improve the overall management, transparency, and accountability of government. As well, it will help to ensure strong leadership capability at all levels. PCO will effectively meet this priority by supporting the renewal of the Public Service of Canada.
The fourth priority is to strengthen PCO's internal management practices. This priority will contribute to excellence in management practices, resulting in effective and efficient use of resources in support of PCO's operations. In addition, financial and non-financial performance information will be more readily available, contributing to improved transparency and accountability.
PCO will focus on internal renewal efforts and initiatives and the following plans: to strengthen management of internal security, particularly in the areas of emergency management and occupational safety and health; to contribute to provide objective and independent value-added assurance services; to strengthen the integration of human resources planning into business planning; and to implement the second year of a multi-year performance measurement strategy.
PCO's main estimates for 2009-10 total $128.8 million. Resources are allocated as follows: 47% of our resources are spent on providing professional, non-partisan policy advice and support to the Prime Minister and portfolio ministers; 38% is allocated for internal services; 13% on providing policy advice and secretariat support to cabinet and cabinet committees; and 2% on providing overall leadership and direction to the public service in support of the government's agenda.
As of 2009-10, internal services are now being presented as a separate program activity in the main estimates as per the Treasury Board Secretariat's standardized profile of the Government of Canada's internal services. In prior years, corporate services budgets and expenses were prorated based on the weight of each program activity.
For internal services, please note that PCO operates in a highly centralized and unique environment where many costs normally assumed by line managers are covered by corporate services: for example, all informatics and technical services, which include protected and classified networks based on the uniqueness of our business environment at PCO; all furniture and equipment; supplies; printing and graphics; messenger services; telecommunications; translation; and the review of cabinet confidence information in order to protect prior and current cabinet information. These are all covered by corporate services and are not allocated to the individual program activities.
The overall increase of $5.6 million, from $123.2 million in 2008-09 to $128.8 million in 2009-10, pertains to the following items. The $4.8 million is related to the funding for the establishment and the operations of the Afghanistan Task Force. Funding is expected until 2011-12, which is the last year of operation of the task force. The $2 million is related to the funding for the office of the coordinator for the 2010 Olympics and for G-8 security. Funding is expected until 2010-11, which is the last year of operations of the office. There is $800,000 that is included for collective bargaining agreements and $100,000 for statutory adjustments related to the salary and motor car allowance for the leader of the government in the House of Commons.
This is offset by the following decreases. There is $1.3 million for the funding of the Commission of Inquiry into the Investigation of the Bombing of Air India Flight 182, which was originally ending its operations in 2008-09. Therefore, no amounts were approved in the 2009-10 main estimates. However, due to delays of hearings, delays in getting documents, and delays in the production of the report, additional funding for this commission was sought in the 2008-09 supplementary estimates and will be sought through the 2009-10 supplementary estimates (A). There is also a reduction of $500,000 for statutory adjustments related to the employee benefit plans and $300,000 for additional efficiency savings related to the procurement initiative.
[Translation]
In closing, I would like to thank you for giving me this time to inform you of the ongoing initiatives in the 2009-10 Main Estimates.
The Privy Council Office plays two roles. One is as secretariat to the cabinet, so PCO actually organizes, on behalf of the Prime Minister and on behalf of the chairs of the various cabinet committees, the actual meetings of ministers. We provide advice on what could be on the agenda and the scheduling of meetings. We actually help to organize them.
Part of that role is to work with the involved departments that are bringing items into cabinet, to make sure that when items come to cabinet they are ready for discussion. One of the principles we try to observe in working with departments is to make sure that when ministers have items on the cabinet agenda and they're there to make decisions or provide recommendations, they have full information so that the proposals are well developed, the costs are understood, the benefits are understood--that sort of thing.
What Ms. MacPherson referred to in her remarks is that part of the role we play is to provide a bit of a challenge function, if you like. When a department is coming into cabinet with a proposal, we work with them to make sure there is full information. In a sense, we provide a bit of an opportunity to ask some difficult questions in advance to make sure the proposal is the best it can be. But certainly PCO plays that role in a facilitating sense. Obviously, the responsible minister is responsible for the program and the advice, and ultimately the cabinet makes the decision. But our job is to facilitate that process by working with ministries when they come into the system.
I appreciate that, and I will do my best to stay within the eight minutes that I'm afforded.
Thank you very much. I appreciate you coming. As you know, one of the most important things we're hearing about in our ridings and one of the initiatives that is most important to this government is the stimulus package, and more importantly the budget, getting the budget out the door and getting the funds flowing so that we can build the roads, the bridges, and the other things that Canadians are depending on us to do. Obviously the government has to work cooperatively with the bureaucracy to get this done.
I was wondering if you might be able to highlight some of the things that the bureaucracy, or the public service, is doing to help speed up the implementation of Budget 2009.
:
A number of things have been done, and I can itemize them.
The first is with regard to the process for cabinet approvals. Work has been done to try to accelerate the normal cabinet approval process. Typically, it would be a number of months after a budget is put out that items would come forward to cabinet. PCO has been working with departments, where possible, to try to group together like items and to bring them to the cabinet system on an expedited basis.
We've been trying to work with colleagues at Treasury Board to do much the same with Treasury Board submissions. Once the policy is established at cabinet, there is then all the administrative detail of how a program will be designed, the terms and conditions and that sort of thing.
Treasury Board has been working with departments to help them develop their Treasury Board submissions, in many cases in parallel with the policy development work. So they are trying to do both at the same time, as opposed to doing it sequentially. They are trying to bring Treasury Board proposals into the Treasury Board, again on an expedited basis, grouping together proposals that are similar where that's possible.
Also, they have been working across departments in the government, looking at how various authorities can be realigned to better support the delivery of the stimulus measures. For example, where a department might have a robust risk management framework in place, that department might be given more authority than is typical to be able to go out and actually execute contracts and undertake work.
In addition to that, the government has been exploring--and certainly the public service has been supporting this--ways to streamline various approval processes. For example, if one wanted to construct a bridge, you would typically have approvals under the Navigable Waters Protection Act to look at how to streamline and reduce redundancy under that legislation.
In addition, I mentioned earlier, with regard to the whole process around appropriations, to try to find a way to accelerate appropriations.... For example, there are a large number of items set out in the Budget Implementation Act so that the appropriation authority can actually take place through the budget legislation. Once the legislation passes, departments will actually have the authority to spend. Again, typically what would happen is the spending authority would be through the supplementary estimates, either in June or perhaps in December, which would be up to eight months after the budget is typically tabled.
Altogether in that process--I don't have the figures directly--the savings would be anywhere from a couple of months to as much as a year or more in terms of the ability to roll out measures.
I would note that the IMF, in its article 4 assessment, which I believe came out yesterday, actually had some very positive things to say about what Canada is doing to try to focus on delivery of the measures in the budget.
:
Mr. Chair, I have just a couple of comments.
One is that, just in terms of sound risk management, I think the downside risks of job losses and the economy slowing further have to be taken into account in the risk management equation. When an examination is undertaken of spending, one way in which to save time and to accelerate the delivery of programing is to focus on the terms, the conditions, and the criteria that are really the most critical.
When the economy is at full employment and when times are good, for example, if the government were looking to spend on infrastructure and other sorts of things, typically what one would want to do would be to focus more effort on picking the most strategic projects.
At the moment, with job losses and with the slowdown in the economy, a key purpose of the stimulus measures is to stimulate aggregate demand. The way in which you stimulate aggregate demand is you get dollars into the economy quickly, hence the focus in the budget on short-term, shovel-ready projects.
One way to reflect that in the programming is to have a very focused set of criteria to indicate that these are the things we need to focus on in order to get that project approved. Perhaps some of the other considerations that might be there in different circumstances, such as some of the more strategic aspects and so on--
:
What that relates to is that in 2007 we launched in PCO our first strategic HR plan. There had not been one before. In that plan we did a number of focus groups with managers and staff to try to determine what we could do to improve both the workforce and the workplace, for the employees and also for the operation of the organization. At the same time, it became obvious that we needed to do better planning.
We are in the same position as every other department: we need to recruit very talented people, we need to retain them, and we need to ensure that they have proper training and development. So we launched into this strategic HR plan. It is for three years, and we have a number of initiatives under way, particularly to improve our recruitment and retention of staff.
We also realized that you need to tie your human resources planning with your business planning, so in accordance with the direction we were given in the last fiscal year by the Clerk of the Privy Council in his report, every department was required to do an integrated business plan that included emphasis on HR. We have done that. It certainly wasn't perfect, but we continue to strive to make the connections between our HR planning and our business plans to ensure that what we have in our business plans is clearly related to the priorities in our report on plans and priorities and also takes into account the areas of risk that we identify when we do our annual risk profile. It's all about instituting, inside the organization, a better management framework for the full purpose of ensuring that we have the very best workforce we can possibly have in support of the Prime Minister and the government.
[English]
Just before I turn to Mr. Warkentin, I want to clear up the issue of the ways and means motion that reflected the home renovation tax credit. I'm advised by Ms. Scratch, our analyst, that there is a second ways and means motion and a second notice of motion. I'm looking at the one that's in the budget documents. Your chair spent much too long on that one-inch-thick ways and means motion last night trying to find it. It's actually in a second ways and means motion.
I'm sure, Mr. Martin, you'll be able to find a copy of it—Ms. Scratch will be able to find it. I haven't actually managed to have the benefit of having it before my own eyes yet, but I'm looking forward to it.
I'll turn to Mr. Warkentin, for five minutes.
:
Thank you, Chair, for the opportunity.
Thank you for coming before us this morning. We appreciate your testimony and your interaction with us.
I'm going to leave the estimates, because I think we probably have heard where all the money is going, and we appreciate the fact that you're wise managers of that. But since we've got you here, I thought it would be an important thing for us to consider whether in fact you as a department or as an organization are receiving enough money or resources when it comes to the access to information requests you receive.
Coming out of the Accountability Act, there was an increase in numbers of places and organizations where people could access information, where they could request information. Has that increased the workload for PCO, in terms of the requests that would be coming from other departments and as they may relate to cabinet confidences?
:
We appreciate the fact that there has been such significant improvement within your own department, and other departments as well, and we appreciate your efforts to be open and transparent in that manner.
I'm reluctant to ask the question because I don't know the answer—people always say don't ask the question unless you know the answer or have a good idea—but is there any ongoing discussion with regard to the frustration many people have when they receive a document they've requested through access to information and find significant portions of the document are blacked out?
We saw this most recently in a document that came from the NCC, and it was surrounding the improvements to 24 Sussex. Something that you and I—or maybe not you and I, but many people around this table—might find frustrating is that there were significant portions blacked out on issues that I think would be generally considered relatively harmless. The average person, certainly the average parliamentarian, gets frustrated when they see large segments of a document blacked out. Is there any effort to address that concern and possibly rethink the amount that's blacked out?
The sense is that in order to get the documents out the door, there's a decision just simply to black out significant portions just in case they might be problematic, rather than erring on the side of full disclosure.
:
In this phase of the meeting, colleagues, we're going to be interviewing Ms. Patricia Hassard, who was recently appointed to the position of deputy secretary to the cabinet in senior personnel and public service renewal.
I just want the record to show that we're not reviewing this appointment because of any perceived weakness or anything. Ms. Hassard has a very good record and an excellent career in the federal public service. We're reviewing this appointment, first, because members have agreed that we should be reviewing appointments on a random basis just to better show that we are doing it to assure continued quality of these appointments; and, second, because the committee was looking at some public service issues and her appointment to her current responsibility is related to those.
Colleagues may wish to ask questions about the public service or public service renewal within Ms. Hassard's mandate, but the main purpose is to generally provide the parliamentary review of her appointment.
Ms. Hassard, you don't have to make a statement, but if you would like to, if you've prepared something, we'd be delighted to hear it, and then we'll go to questions.
Before you do that, could I just alert colleagues that we have a draft report on the agenda. It's been prepared by staff, and it's also in relation to the appearance of the Public Service Commission. If members are satisfied with that draft, as is, we could move adoption of it or go in camera to discuss it briefly. If there is any member who is dissatisfied with the draft and wants to deal with it later, we'll deal with it later and not today. I'll just give members notice of that. I'd like to wrap up about 10 or 15 minutes before the top of the hour.
Ms. Hassard, over to you.
:
Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I am very pleased to be here today and to tell you a bit about myself and my appointment as Deputy Secretary, Senior Personnel and Public Service Renewal with the Privy Council Office.
Let me begin by briefly introducing myself. I understand that you have received a copy of my curriculum vitae for your review.
[English]
I think I'm one of the few public servants in the national capital region who was born and raised in Ottawa. I come from a long line of teachers--I know a couple of you are teachers--on both sides of my family who encouraged me to pursue a life in the public service. I would call myself a career public servant because it is my calling. In fact, I can't imagine doing anything else. It's been my whole career.
[Translation]
My first experience with the federal government was as a Tour Guide in Dawson City, Yukon, for Parks Canada. I spent the summers giving tours of historic sites from the gold rush era and swatting mosquitoes. In the winters, I went to law school at the University of Western Ontario.
[English]
Administrative law, as you know, governs the relationship between citizens and their government. While administrative law was my favourite subject at school, it was not necessarily my best mark. I did my articling in London and came back to Ottawa to join the government and to practise administrative law.
As you can see from my CV, I did start out doing legal research at the Canadian Transport Commission, and I ended up becoming the assistant general counsel. I found that my strength and my interest as a public servant was in management and in building capacity in organizations. You will not find many people as curious about organizational structure or how decision-making processes work as I am.
I moved from a director role in the new National Transportation Agency into a counsel and director of operations role in the Legislation and House Planning Secretariat at Privy Council Office. This was my first tour of duty in Privy Council Office. I learned a lot about parliamentary business, agenda setting, cabinet processes, and electoral law. I also learned a lot about how to manage people, or how not to manage people, depending on your point of view.
[Translation]
After a number of years in L&HP, I moved into a Director of Operations position in Security and Intelligence Secretariat. The role was similar in that it involved support to Cabinet, but the subject matter was completely different and fascinating to me.
[English]
I then spent three years over at Elections Canada where I met some of you. The Elections Canada mandate, I believe, is a noble one because of the democratic tradition it represents. I was there for the general election of 2000. This was a landmark election because it was the first time the federal government used the national register of electors.
[Translation]
In 2001, I went back into the security world at the Solicitor General, first in policing and then in national security and emergency management. I was there for the creation of the new department, Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.
[English]
Now I find myself back in a core role in the Privy Council Office with responsibility for leadership of two secretariats. One of them is senior personnel, and its mandate is to support the government on Governor in Council appointments. The other is a newly amalgamated secretariat called the public service renewal.
I have an excellent team and we are working hard to help shape the senior cadre so that the public service can continue to provide professional non-partisan advice to the government and high-quality services to Canadians.
Let me stop there. I'd be pleased to take any questions and answer them to the best of my abilities, Mr. Chairman.
Mrs. Hassard, you'll appreciate the fact that our chair has been around here long enough to bump into a lot of people over the years, and he is given to name-dropping from time to time. I'm not sure if that will help in his riding, but only time will tell.
Mrs. Hassard, thank you for being here today, and thank you for your presentation. It's very kind of you to offer a little bit of background on yourself for those of us who have not had the experience of bumping into you from time to time.
According to the chart I have here, you report to the national security advisor to the Prime Minister. Do you find yourself having to work collaboratively with Madame Morin as the advisor?
:
I may answer that question by providing a little more background on what public service renewal is. I think the question about mobility will be in better context in that circumstance.
I think people use the term “public service renewal” without actually knowing how broad it is. First and foremost, it's actually about dealing with the business of government and having government get better at delivering results for Canadians. It's not a time-limited program or project. It's not an HR initiative. It's an ongoing process of the senior leadership and the whole of the public service to adapt to the 21st century and to have a public service that is relevant, dynamic, and excellent at what it does, capable of providing high-quality advice to government and excellent services to Canadians.
I think Madam MacPherson made a couple of the points in her presentation, but I think there's a need to explain the rationale for public service renewal in a little more detail.
It is clear from the Prime Minister's advisory committee on the public service that a country that has a strong public service is going to be a more prosperous and healthy country. They said, “In this [economic] context, there is no doubt that a strong and innovative Public Service is more important than ever.”
We believe that to make the public service better, we should continue our efforts on renewal.
We also have some pretty serious demographic challenges. We are a little bigger than we were in 1983, but we have actually aged considerably as a public service compared to other sectors in the Canadian economy. In 1983, 42% of public servants were over 40. Today, 66% are over 40. That's a significant number.
We also have a couple of alarming statistics, in that one-quarter of public servants will be eligible to retire, without penalty, in 2012. That's 25%. And 50% of our executive cadre will be eligible to retire in 2012. We have some work to do to bring the next generation forward and have them ready to replace the baby boomers when they go.
There's one other complicating factor, which is that during the recession of the 1990s the government did not hire and did not recruit. There is a missing generation of leaders, who we are now realizing we don't have.
On the public service renewal, a good part of it is about reaching into the public service and attempting to bring forward the next generation of leaders.
:
If you don't mind, Mr. Chair, I'm going to leave a little time for my colleague, who would like to ask a brief question.
Good morning, Ms. Hassard. I really like your curriculum vitae and your approach. You seem to me to be a straightforward person, with lots of common sense. It is very nice to have you here.
You say, on page 4 of the French version of your presentation, that your are working very hard to help shape the executive cadre. When Ms. Barrados, from the Public Service Commission, came to appear before us, she told us actually that managers and the executive cadre should benefit from further training so as to make better use of the staffing process. I would like to know whether you work in collaboration with Ms. Barrados. That is my first question.
As for my second question, you talked about human resources with my colleague from the Liberal Party. I'd like to know whether you will have a budget and, if so, how much will be dedicated to renewal of the public service in 2009-10.
:
Thank you very much for the questions.
Concerning the first one, about the development of the management skills in the executive cadre, there is now mandatory training on financial, human resource, and access to information authorities before they are delegated to a manager. Everyone who receives those delegations has to go through a training program at the Canada School of Public Service. That's one way we are attempting to improve our cadre.
There is another way we're doing it. We have now developed a program called the advanced leadership program. It's only for 25 to 30 people, and they are absolutely the highest-potential people we have in the public service. We have developed a nine-week program for them, which ran once last year and will run again this year. The purpose of that program is to take them at a mid-career level and bring them forward; in other words, expose them to a lot of new ideas, internationally and domestically, and a lot of new approaches to big problems and have them come back to the public service much better equipped to take on some of the senior roles.
We also have another program called Leaders Across Borders, which is doing something similar in conjunction with the United Kingdom and Australia and New Zealand. This is a little exchange program, in which a dozen of our senior leaders go to those countries and theirs come here for a week to share best practices in the Westminster tradition.
We also have another program called “Canada at 150”. This is a really novel idea that has worked out very well. Departments were asked to identify fairly new recruits who had about five years' experience and were showing a lot of interest in the policy issues facing Canada. They have gotten together three times as a group—150 of them. Their purpose is to look at the challenges facing Canada in 2017, when it will be 150 years old. Some of the work they are doing is showing great promise. They will have one more event before they present their report. They are people from all over the federal government. It is one of those interesting new ideas, which seems to be stimulating a new generation in their commitment to and experience in public service.
I can assure you, Ms. Hassard, that you won't have any trouble with mosquitoes today if you go outside. But that's not what my question is about.
I have seen for myself in some departments a fairly serious problem regarding senior officials, the executive cadre. These people were often appointed temporarily. I'll give you an example. In Vancouver, there is a large Fisheries and Oceans office, not to actually name it. In two years, there were three acting managers. It wasn't working anymore at all. There were serious internal problems. The trouble was that the historical culture of the department was not being passed on, and that meant that the office was totally dysfunctional. During the Fraser River sockeye salmon crisis, the problem was identified and determined to be serious.
Instead of appointing people temporarily, appointments should be more long-term, permanent, so as to avoid a lot of problems pertaining to the operation of certain departments.
:
Thank you for the question.
I think there are concerns about the situation you raise, not particularly as a result of the acting appointment, but because of the fact that in some professions and in some departments there is an extraordinary amount of churn.
I think the president of the Public Service Commission was here recently. Some of the statistics that came from her study on mobility are quite startling. The personnel administration category had 74% movement in one year. The economist/sociologist category had 71% movement. The executive category had 55% movement.
This is a complex issue. It's not due to just one cause. I think in large measure it's due to the retirements and the domino effect that leaves positions vacant. There are a lot of lateral moves and a lot of promotions. I think it also could be a sign of an organization that's in transition. It's hard to put your finger on exactly why this does happen, but I think the impact on the quality of the work and the attractiveness of that workplace as a place where people would want to work becomes a little bit questionable. There is a serious impact about knowledge transfer and a lack of continuity.
On the other hand, there is actually a positive side to this, in that those vacancies, those positions that are open, do give the government and the managers an opportunity to hire people with a different skill set. It does give them an opportunity to maybe change the way the nature of the work is done or improve the processes.
I think you have to look at both sides of it, but it is a serious issue. I think we would like the norm for tenure to be at least three years, but it's not something we have been able to edict, let's put it that way. We do attempt to do that with our senior cadre, the deputies, but given the demographics and the operational needs, we find ourselves in a position where we have to move some of the people around to get them the breadth so that they can eventually move up. I think it will be a challenge until probably after 2012-13.
:
Thank you for that question.
Actually, I think it's an excellent point. As we create new organizations or as we're looking at improving our business processes, one of the things that we do need to look at is whether they would be better placed in a region than in the national headquarters. You're extremely correct. For example, we have a pension administration business in Shediac, New Brunswick, which is absolutely fantastic. They do an excellent job. They have a very low turnover rate. They have an extremely experienced workforce. I think the quality of the work benefits from that.
I think it is a question that we should always be asking ourselves: when we're looking at an institutional location, where should it be? I think the turnover question is a significant one.
The other thing I should add is that given the recession, there are actually trends going the other way. We're not sure exactly what will transpire there, but in fact we may see fewer retirements as a result of people being worried about their financial stability. We may see more people who are interested in coming into the public service for the security and benefits it offers. We also may see people who are in the public service who choose not to move because they want to make sure they can maintain that position. It's an interesting combination of factors at the moment.