Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would first like to compliment the honourable Member on his tie.

-- Laughter

Yes, I will certainly commit to looking at the information he has provided to me. We have to be very careful when we start comparing employment or position numbers from regions to headquarters or even at different periods of time, and so on.

You can get it from a number of sources. If you take the human resources information system, it is at one point in time. If you take it off the main estimates, it covers a whole year. If you go to the regions, then often we have devolved responsibilities. For example, between 1997, when the Member is referring to and now, we have devolved a lot of positions to the communities and to regional organizations.

So it is a complicated question. You cannot just sit down and take a number off a point in time and compare the two. A lot has happened in that period. Mr. Speaker in response to the question, I will definitely have the department do an analysis and provide a full reply on the differences. Thank you.