Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for that explanation, Mr. Minister. I do have some difficulty though, especially given the fact that some of our larger government departments would have vacancy rates upwards of 10 percent. That being the case, we're talking about some pretty significant dollars that are associated

with those vacant positions. I do agree with you that, yes, departments and managers need to be able to have some flexibility and have to have some room to manoeuvre inside their departments, but if the money that is earmarked for positions isn't spent on the positions I have some difficulty with that, as do some of the other Members on this side of the House. I'm not sure how we tackle it. I know it's probably not a new thing that I'm bringing up here today, but it's something that I feel very strongly about. I think budgets are set for people to follow and I know it happens. I don't know how we can stop it from happening or try to discourage that type of creative accounting inside departments. I think it's something that we should keep an eye on. I know the Minister is aware of that and maybe we can work collectively here over the next couple of weeks to try to find a way that we can try to tackle that. In a bigger department it certainly is an issue, a bigger issue for me depending on the size of the department.