The public sector, the federal government, the public service, and programs must be adapted to today s needs. The massive cutbacks we have seen in the past few years will not be necessary in the short term, I hope, but the economic and financial situation evolves both ways, upwards and downwards. We hope to be able to avoid cutbacks of such magnitude, which does not mean we can t perhaps reallocate credits from one program to another, wind up some programs, change or reduce them. There is constant dynamics in this area. For now, the government s goal is to avoid a recurring deficit while meeting the public s greater, important demands in the health sector, demands for tax reductions.
Provinces continue to ask for more transfers, the public continues to ask for more services.
We must live with a continued need for balance that may call for reexaminations, which, we hope, will not have the same scope or dimension. We view it with interest on an intellectual level and we also view it practically, that is, it is a source of information that helps the administration modernize. Different American and European authors write about ways of governing, ways of organizing at the administrative level, ways of serving the public. We have think tanks in the public service. There is also the Political Research Institute, which considers key economic and social sectors, and the development of government policy.