I’m not sure if I’m totally in agreement with that statement from the Minister. You don’t do something unless you see a cost benefit to the taxpayer. You just don’t do it because we think it’s going to save money and efficiencies where the economies of scale that tend to pop up from time to time.
I’ve got a hard time wrapping my head around what are the true targets. I know that there are bean counters out there – and I mean that in a positive way and in a positive light – that calculate by as doing this there’s savings, and I think if we’re going to be true to form and we’re going to be asking for money and say follow us, we know what we’re doing, I would hope to God that we have the ability to quantify what those net benefits are, what are the scope of savings. Why do this, then, if we don’t know that number? There’s got to be some preliminary numbers in which the department, the Minister and deputy minister should be able to share with this committee in terms of we’re doing this because we’re saving this much money, because we’re doing our procurement on a more shared and standardized basis. Why don’t we have that type of information? Why is it so secretive?