Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a government and as we begin the process of planning for budgets and the budget cycle, there is a lot of work. A lot of it is based on existing programs and services as departments come forward for more money; forced growth, as we call it. As calls are being made on
departments for new programs, those are the areas we call new initiatives, to try to find the money for those. As we set our direction, the fiscal strategy, of trying to reduce the growth of government and keep our spending in check, we have to reprioritize from within. There are initiatives that we do take that are broad across the board to look at what we are doing as a government. One of the things we key in on with the resources we have available is our strategic plan. As we sit down and map that out, we then take that and apply it to the fiscal resources we have with the core programs we have to deliver and try to work something out in that arrangement. At times we look at just broad, across-the-board direction on general reduction cycles or aiming at a five percent reduction across the board. There are times when, as we've brought it forward, we have looked at departments themselves. Ministers responsible for their areas are given a specific target and they come back with how they can best achieve their targets. So we try to be flexible on how we do it and come forward with some broad-based areas.
One of the areas we've started to look at, for example, that I've looked at, is a zero-based funding approach from each department. We haven't got to that scenario just yet. Thank you.