CONTENTS
Wednesday 1 May 1991
Appointments review
Adjournment
STANDING COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT AGENCIES
Chair: Runciman, Robert W. (Leeds-Grenville PC)
Acting Chair: Wiseman, Jim (Durham West NDP)
Vice-Chair: McLean, Allan K. (Simcoe East PC)
Bradley, James J. (St. Catharines L)
Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East NDP)
Grandmaître, Bernard (Ottawa East L)
Haslam, Karen (Perth NDP)
Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent NDP)
McGuinty, Dalton (Ottawa South L)
Silipo, Tony (Dovercourt NDP)
Stockwell, Chris (Etobicoke West PC)
Waters, Daniel (Muskoka-Georgian Bay NDP)
Clerk: Arnott, Douglas
Staff: Pond, David, Research Officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1049 in room 228.
APPOINTMENTS REVIEW
Resuming consideration of the appointments review process.
The Acting Chair (Mr Wiseman): As temporary Chair, I call this meeting to order. To begin, would Mr Silipo like to lead off?
Mr Silipo: Mr Chairman, I do not know whether to. I guess we should decide whether we want to bother continuing having the meeting. I am a little perturbed that the Conservative members are not here after the fuss that was made last week about us not being here and ready to go with the discussion. We have waited 50 minutes now for the meeting to start and neither the Chair of the committee nor any of the other members of the Conservative caucus are here.
On the one hand, I almost feel like proceeding and just getting the discussion done. On the other hand, I do not want us to do it and then have to redo it because the members of the Conservative caucus are not here. I guess I am looking over to the Liberal members to see what the sense is from them.
Mr Grandmaître: Mr Chair, I feel the same way. I think we should wait for our Tory friends. When can we meet again?
The Acting Chair: The only time allocated for this committee hearing is from 10 till noon on Wednesday mornings. To get another time, I believe you would have to have special permission from the whips.
Mr Waters: We are also running into a deadline here. We have a report that has to go back to the House on 16 May, and if we postpone another week I am concerned about the deadline as well.
Mr Bradley: Does anyone know if this is an official boycott on the part of the Conservative Party or whether they have another meeting?
The Acting Chair: Here they are.
The Chair: My apologies.
Mrs Haslam: We are on page 12 of the recommendations. We have been having a wonderful time.
The Chair: Shocking. Did someone have the floor?
Mr Waters: Really, we were discussing what we were going to do about sitting; whether you were coming or not.
The Chair: The meeting had not begun. So you were just pulling my leg.
Mr Waters: We were just discussing whether we were going to proceed or what.
The Chair: All right. I will officially call the meeting to order and once again offer my apologies. There were other matters requiring my presence.
Mr Grandmaître: We did not have a chance to go over your report at the last meeting. Is it possible for the whip to go through this report or their report?
Mr Silipo: I would be happy to, Mr Chair. We just note that this morning we have also passed out another report which I think fleshes out some of our responses to the position that was put forward by the opposition members.
I think essentially our position is that, in reviewing the guidelines, we need to keep in mind that there is a clear relationship between our role in reviewing the intended appointees and the role that we have in reviewing agencies. It seems to us that we have sort of forgotten a little bit about that, and we would like to look at how those two responsibilities can be brought closer together. We have not gotten through all of that stuff in detail, but I think there are certainly a number of ways that we could be ensuring that in fact both parts of the committee's work continues to be done.
I take it from the reviews we have done or begun that in fact there is still some outstanding work that needs to be done. So if we can just clean up those, we still need to go back and do some work.
Essentially, the fundamental difference of opinion that has been there, I suspect, since the beginning is certainly still there in that we see that the role of the committee with respect to intended appointees is to review those appointments and not to have the committee placed in a situation where we are in effect re-interviewing from a list of people. What we are doing is reviewing an intended appointment that has been made by the minister or the Premier as the case may be. Therefore, that guides all of our entire view in terms of changes that need to be made.
Again we underscore that in making appointments to agencies, boards or commissions, the government may very clearly be exercising its prerogative to use that process in a way that tries to achieve legitimate governmental policy. Again, that underscores that this is a role we think is legitimate. It is certainly a role that has been there historically and that we think needs to continue. The government never intended to give up that power of appointment, but significant changes have been made in the review process and the fact that the review process exists, I think, has led to the opening up of the process, both in terms of what happens long before the names get to this committee -- because if people know that the individuals being suggested for appointment are subject to public scrutiny, that obviously ensures, in and of itself, that the process that is followed is as sterile as can be to ensure the very best person is put forward.
Obviously, even prior to that, with respect to what has been happening as far as making the various positions and information about the various positions not only available but accessible to the public through the binders that list the various positions and the various agencies, boards and commissions being put together and being made available through the public libraries and the members' constituency offices, I think that is another indication of the government's desire and intent to open up the process much more than has ever existed in the past.
In terms of what happens when the individuals come before the committee, I know that the question of the veto is one on which the members opposite have continued to state a very strong position on. I guess our position is equally clear, that we do not believe we need to add that power of veto, because we think it is the appropriate balance between the right of the government to make those appointments and the right of this committee to review and make a determination on those appointments.
It is true that we have never yet been in the situation where we as a committee have voted against any of the intended appointees. My guess is that if that day were to come, and there is no reason to think it may not come one day, the Premier and/or the ministers involved would be hard-pressed to proceed with an appointment which had been objected to by this committee. That in turn, according to the rules, would be interpreted as being also the position of the Legislature as a whole. The power exists there without having to be written as a veto, because I think in writing it as a veto you are removing that power from the government and I do not think the intention should be to do that.
We make a number of suggested changes which we think will tidy up the process. They certainly are not major ones and, as I say, we hope we can get agreement on those. The second change we suggest in there with respect to time limitations; we are quite open to some discussion on that because we certainly do not want people to think there is any attempt to try to reduce the time lines there. That is based more on the kind of experiences we have had. That will be subject to whatever the members opposite have to say about that.
So far the process has worked within the time lines reasonably well. We have got some problems we need to iron out but, aside from the major differences of opinion which clearly are still there, within the scope of the mandate that the committee's work functions, I think the guidelines, while there can certainly be some amendments and some improvements, essentially are working. We also have some of the changes that the opposition members have suggested. Some of those we will be supporting as we go through, those that tend to improve the process within the understanding of the process as it is now. Obviously we will not support some of the major changes that have been suggested for the reasons that we set out.
The question of calling witnesses is again one of the significant changes being suggested, and for the reasons that we outlined we are not able to support that. We think it would change the process substantially into one that has the potential for becoming somewhat inquisitorial. We do not think it is appropriate for that to happen. Even with the safeguards that I acknowledge the opposition members have suggested to that part, our sense at this point is that it is not appropriate to do that.
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As for some of the other changes that have been suggested in terms of the Macaulay report proposals and others, our view on those is that they are things that require some further thinking. As we note in the report, our understanding is that report is being looked at now within the Ministry of the Attorney General and within Management Board and we suspect that something will come out of that. Again, it is something we need to turn our minds to as a committee in the future, but we would not be prepared to do that at this point.
Those are essentially the main points, as I say, they made. There will be a number of other things as we go through that we can comment on, and other members as well.
There is one other thing I want to say. I was a bit troubled following last week's meeting to discover that the opposition members had gone from this committee directly to a press conference. I am not troubled about that; I mean, it is obviously the right of anybody to do that. But I was troubled about the impression I was left with by the members' office that they had all come here ready to discuss the proposals last week and, because we did not have our proposal ready at the beginning of the meeting, that somehow that caused the discussion not to happen. It seems to me that the reality of things was more that the press conference, which was set up for 11 o'clock that morning, when the meeting here started at 10 o'clock -- unless I am wrong about those times, it indicated to me that there was really never any intention to get into a serious discussion of the guidelines and changes last week.
I think people need to be a little clearer about that. If people were coming here ready to discuss the proposals, it clearly was not going to happen in an hour's time. I just caution my friends opposite and ask that if people are going to be seen to be acting with a sense of integrity that we be aboveboard about those kinds of things, because it just adds to the kinds of divisions we do not need. We can all agree to disagree and do it in as honourable a way as we can without having to impute motives or other things.
Mr Grandmaître: On questioning the integrity of the opposition or the members of my party, I can assure the government people that this was not the intention of our press conference. We knew exactly where we stood -- at least three of us knew where we stood as far as changes or proposed changes to the process were concerned. When we discussed the possibility of some changes, you were opposed to most of ours, as you pointed out. You were opposed to most of our proposed amendments. I just want to point out that we went on the premise that you would not change any of the terms of reference of this committee, or very little. Again, you pointed out this morning that no, you are not willing to move on -- maybe time limitation; we all agree that we need more time. Third-party intervention: you do not agree. Veto power: you do not agree, even the balance of this committee.
We felt that because the government members do have a majority, we will continue to operate under very deficient terms of reference. As pointed out by Mr Bradley, we never give up. We do not intend to leave this committee, but you are making it very difficult to operate in a small-l liberal way. Going through your response to our recommendations, I think it is very obvious that you feel very few changes are needed, and we find it very difficult to operate under these conditions.
We even offered that the Premier make his own appointments. Never mind this committee -- make his own appointments. I think that is showing some confidence in the leader of this government. Go ahead and do your appointments. I know you people do not want to go back to the old ways, because you had a tendency to believe that all Premiers in the past were unjust, using patronage as a tool. I am still offering that the Premier go ahead with his appointments and live by them and not use this committee as a rubber stamp, because I think we can all use our time in a better way than to simply sit around and rubber-stamp the intended -- I love the word "intended" appointee, especially when you get a copy of the OIC signed by the Premier. I simply do not buy this. I think we are being told, "This is my choice."
Mr Silipo has pointed out that members of the government were never placed in a situation where they had to vote against a candidate because of the great quality of those candidates. Well, I question the quality of some candidates. I would say that maybe 75% or 80% of the candidates who appeared before this committee were good people. They were all good people, but I think the Premier's office or the Premier's people should have done a better job in researching and should have provided us with a possible choice of maybe three candidates and then we could make a recommendation.
I know this would extend the process and would be time-consuming, but you people want to prove that in the past not only my government but previous governments used this patronage tool, and I do not buy it. I still say it is a patronage tool. I will maintain that we are being used as rubber stamps, and I do not like it. I think my colleagues are prepared to continue to sit in this very unfavourable atmosphere. We will continue to be responsible, but you are making it very difficult for us to be fully objective.
Mr Bradley: I do not say this in a necessarily critical way, just in a matter of fact way, but I found the response a highly partisan assessment of opposition motives and so on. That is the nature of the game, but this is questioning the motives of the opposition in as narrow a partisan way as I have seen. That is fine. I have been around this place long enough to see that happen and I accept that is part of the process.
The fact is that you are not going to change, that this is not a meaningful exercise we go through. It is an exercise, but no substantial changes are going to be made. To portray this to the public and to others as a significant shift from what has existed in the past I think would be to misrepresent reality, and our concern consistently has been the gap between perception that you attempt to create as a government and reality.
Some members of the committee on the government side, in fairness, have not attempted to create that perception out there. They have recognized the terms we work within and have characterized it as an improvement but not a drastic improvement. I guess my annoyance is that you try to portray it as opening up the process in a very meaningful way. The crack in the door is open, and that is certainly fine, but it is not a meaningful change. It is not the kind of change I think people contemplated when they listened to the now Premier and members of the now governing party in opposition and during election campaigns about making some substantial differences.
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The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of people the government is going to appoint -- I do not, again, say this in a particularly critical way -- are going to be friends of the New Democrats or New Democrats. They are the government, that is the process, and I suppose one can say that is the way it has been for a number of years. To the winner goes the spoils, to that extent.
I know the government will want to appoint good people because bad appointments will reflect badly upon the government; they will be looking for New Democrats and people sympathetic to the government point of view on issues, but at the same time I have no doubt they will want to look for people who are not going to embarrass them. The only advantage this committee has is the opportunity from time to time, on a very limited basis, to interview a few people, and even those restrictions are difficult. That is the only advantage I see of this particular role of this committee at this time.
It is disappointing though not surprising, frankly, to see that the government members, upon instructions of the Premier's office, no doubt, and their own personal feelings -- but certainly those personal feelings would not likely be contrary to the Premier's office -- are not prepared to concede to opposition parties any significant powers. This is not going to be taken out of the realm of partisan politics, and that is fine as long as we know that is the way it is going to be. I do not think people can be overly critical of the government for that unless they are people who listened to what the government said in opposition and during the campaign. Maybe, as with so many things, once the party assumes the role of government it changes its mind when it has, as one minister said yesterday, the facts available to it now, although we know the facts are often available in opposition as well.
So it is a disappointing day. I am not going to pound my fist on the table or anything because I am not particularly exercised or surprised by it. Perhaps some who have written that this committee has the power to veto will now understand the committee does not have the power to veto and it does not have the virtue over the federal committee that some thought it had. We will recognize that we are going to have everybody approved by the committee who is proposed by the government, unless there is an extreme circumstance; I do not want to rule out entirely that there might be an extreme circumstance, but there would be hell to pay for government members who voted against a government appointee. It is more likely that members of the committee will tell the Premier's office they would find it difficult to support a particular person before it got to the final vote of the committee, rather than the other way around. I suspect that might be the case and, again, that may be of some benefit in the whole process of things.
I know some people have felt that the American system should be looked at. We are very often critical of Americans because we Canadians like to think our system of government is superior to theirs. One of the exercises they go through which is rather interesting is the appointment exercise, the interviewing of people, the calling of witnesses. It has its advantages and its disadvantages, but that is what I call an open system. This government is not prepared to move to that kind of open system, where there would be third-party intervention and comments. I understand the reasons they have put forward, that they do not want anybody to be embarrassed or they do not want to scare away good applicants. That argument can be made on many occasions, I suppose. It can be made when you are electing people to public office; maybe a lot of people who would run for public office would not want to be subject to the kind of scrutiny they would get during a campaign or as elected members or perhaps just as people thinking about running for a public office, so they do not run. That is the nature of the system.
But what the government is saying in its response to the opposition is that it is neither prepared to open the process more than it is at this point in time, nor is it prepared to make this a multipartisan exercise. I do not think one can ever really say non-partisan; that is stretching it a bit, and I do not think there is much credibility when you suggest that. It is going to be within the realm and domain of the NDP government to make its appointments, to have a majority in the committee and to ensure that the people it wants appointed are appointed.
The one advantage that will be left to all of us in this committee, particularly in this case the opposition, will be the opportunity from time to time to interview the odd potential applicant. That is a very minor step forward and not what I expected when I listened to my opponents during the election campaign, and my friends in opposition over the years talked about how they would really improve the process.
Mr Stockwell: I would echo a lot of the statements that were made by the Liberals. I too, frankly, am astounded that this is the NDP's answer to an open and aboveboard process for vetting government appointments. When you ran in the election, I do not think this is what the NDP backbenchers considered to be an open process for vetting appointments. It is far from open, considering the fact that you get told who is getting the appointment, and you can bother interviewing them or not. The members of the NDP will vote for that person, and that is the way it goes.
It is very frustrating listening to the pap you hear on the campaign trail about being open, fair and accessible, and then seeing the charade that takes place once the open, fair and accessible government gets elected. I do not really think the old process is that terrible. I think if you are going to be the government, make your appointments. Whether you are a Conservative or a Liberal or an NDP government, there are clearly people you choose to appoint who carry your ideas forward.
Let's be clear: The people they have appointed I would never have appointed. They are not carrying my ideas forward; they are not carrying forward the ideas of the people who voted for me. They are carrying your ideas forward; they are people who voted for you, and it is supposed to be non-partisan.
My goodness, if you took some of these appointments back to Etobicoke and asked, "Do you think these are good appointments?" I think you could probably find 2,000 or 3,000 appointments they would prefer over the ones they have made.
"Non-partisan appointments" is laughable. The argument that is made is that through this process we can vet them and turn them down. As I said in the beginning, I could believe that if it ever happened. I suppose the argument will be made that nothing is impossible, that miracles happen and so on and so forth, but until I see it I am not going to believe it.
We are left with the predicament of sitting around -- I do not think it is just myself and our party wasting our time; I think the Liberals are wasting their time and I think the backbenchers for the NDP are wasting their time as well -- playing out this charade at excessive cost to the taxpayers on a weekly basis, pretending there is some kind of open and accessible process, pretending that the people who come here do not honestly believe they will be the appointment.
I would like to get back to what this committee did originally: vet government agencies. They have been doing that for some years, and it was clear that most parties were prepared to continue and thought it was a worthwhile exercise. I think it probably was a worthwhile exercise, and I would feel more productive, certainly, as an opposition member, in vetting the agencies and examining expenditures and the processes, whatever takes place in those government agencies. I think it would be a healthy use of taxpayers' money and our time.
I do not think I am the only one who feels this must be a waste of time. Surely there is someone on the government side who feels we are wasting our time as well. Even the questioning from the government members is like three-pitch baseball. The ball has to go over the person's head before they can swing, and that is about how difficult the questions are that come from the government side. l think that is indicative. I am not arguing with you. I think you have the right to do what you are doing, and I wish you would. I wish you would just do it and quit wasting our time and the taxpayers' time going through this NDP charade.
I guess the reason you feel compelled to do this is because during the campaign you said you would do it. I do not know why that bothers you, because you said during the campaign that you would do a lot of things you are not doing, so why do we not just add this to the list?
If we are going to continue this process, I do not think our party will participate. If we are going to go back to the government agency process, then we will obviously participate. If they change it to what I feel to be acceptable, then we will come back and go through this interview process, but I do not buy into their report. It does not change it at all, in my opinion, and the minor changes they make are like putting a comma in certain places in the report and suggesting we have made some dramatic changes to the report itself.
So we are choosing to opt out, and if they want to go back to some serious reviews, then we will consider coming back. When they interview government agencies, a process that I think is far more worth while than this charade we are going through now, we will continue in that.
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Mr McGuinty: I can sum it up by saying the emperor has no clothes. I have reviewed the report briefly here, the most recent one submitted by the government members. I think one of the most significant statements in it is that there is an open acknowledgement here: "The appointments process is neither neutral nor non-partisan." The government's thinking may have evolved to the point where it is now prepared to accept that. I think we should recognize that what this means is that we are no longer after the best person for the job, objectively speaking. We are now recognizing that the appointments process is neither neutral nor non-partisan -- your words.
Our business is politics and, integral to that, our system of democracy is partisanship. There is a good sense and a bad sense to partisanship, and I think, personally, that the jury is still out on this issue of partisan appointments, something you were advocating here. In any event, as we are no longer after the best person for the job and the appointments process is neither neutral nor non-partisan, to use your words, the process really is not open. We really do not have the tools to review these appointments. The process effectively provides that the Premier is going to select an intended appointee. We may or may not ask questions of that appointee, and that is it.
Perhaps the most telling indicator in this report is the government's refusal to allow us the power of veto. We have been emasculated. I should not use that term; that is sexist, I guess. But we have no power whatsoever. This committee as a whole has no power -- and I think the government members in particular should recognize that -- to veto an intended appointment for someone who comes before us.
I am attracted to some of the things Mr Stockwell said. We are doing a disservice to the public in terms of the kind of dollars going into supporting our attendance at the reviews of these appointments. Our time would be much better spent fulfilling the original mandate of this committee, dealing with agencies, boards and commissions.
I think the Premier should just grab the bull by the horns. If his intention is to make appointments of persons supportive of his policies, that there is a large collection of thinkers who believe that that is appropriate, he should just say he is going to do that and do it. Otherwise, as I say, the emperor has no clothes. We are without the means to properly review these appointments, and I think we should move on to the original mandate of the committee.
Mr Silipo: I am a little troubled about the sense that I think is being created that somehow, all of a sudden, we have admitted that the process is partisan. I think it is worth while to remind people that the conclusion that the process was supposed to be completely non-partisan was something the opposition members reached on their own.
There is a very clear distinction in my mind between a process that is open and a process that is non-partisan. I think there was always every full intention on the part of the government to open up the process, and I think that has been done in a very substantial way. I believe that very sincerely.
However, I also think we have acknowledged right from the beginning in our brief that it is our view that in making the appointments we need to recognize that the government may very well be using that power of appointment to carry forward its agenda. That is partisan. That is what it is. I do not think we create targets, making them up as we go along so we have something to shoot at. It is quite inappropriate and incorrect.
There are many more things, I suppose, one could go into in terms of the details. I do not know where we go from here in dealing with the changes, but certainly we believe very strongly that the process as it is now is much more open than it ever was in the past, and we think for that reason that there are some very significant improvements that have been made which neither of the previous governments ever contemplated or, if they were contemplated, ever put in place.
The process is much more open in that sense. People can criticize it and say that it does not devolve the responsibilities from the government to the committee. It does not do that, but it was never intended to do that. It was intended to make the process more open, more accessible, much more subject to public scrutiny. That it has done and that it is doing, retaining still the responsibility the government has to make appointments.
Mr Wiseman: I would like to pick up on that, because I think it does a disservice to the public to make appointments behind closed doors and not to allow them to be publicized the way Mr Stockwell has suggested it should be returned to.
In the past, there have been many appointments made that nobody ever knew anything about. At least in this process people are coming before this committee. The press is free to come, the public is free to come, and they are free to come and find out who is being appointed to the boards and agencies that have an important role to play in the lives they are leading.
To return to the Premier-directed appointments with no scrutiny, that Mr Stockwell is suggesting and the Conservative Party is endorsing, I find to be completely unacceptable given the comments that Mr Holtmann made when he was here. He said that in some ways the process we are undergoing here is even better than the process they are undergoing in Ottawa. I find it somewhat interesting that the federal Conservative Party, while admitting that its process is not perfect, at least admits that the process should be in place and that appointees should bc vetted. I do not think I could ever support the notion that we go behind closed doors and allow the Premier to make appointments without having some view of them.
I think there is a very good educational aspect to this whole process as well, so that the public has access to the information and has a greater and better understanding of some of the boards and agencies they will deal with on a daily basis. For a lot of my constituents, the fact that we could talk to the appointments to the Workers' Compensation Board was a very big plus. They understand better what the whole process is about, especially those workers who are injured and need assistance from that particular agency.
I think this notion that we should return to the days when the Premier made appointments and no one knew what was going on is unacceptable.
Mr Bradley: Your review of history is not quite accurate there, but I will not argue it.
Mr Wiseman: The other aspect of this process which I find to be very encouraging is the publication of the books that will be forthcoming and put in libraries so that everybody can have access to them.
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Mr Bradley: It is not a major change. I do not see the fuss, but I am not going to lose any sleep over it. Why do you pretend it is? Why do you make up like this was a big secret thing before? People knew before. There was a lot of consultation with opposition members, etc.
The Chair: I am going to jump in here, because I want to --
Interjection.
The Chair: Order, please. The fact is that over the past several months all three parties have all had the opportunity to put their views on the record on numerous occasions in respect to the process. Maybe I am not being fair to everyone today, and I am sure if I am not you will let me know, but I think we have heard in essence a reiteration of positions essentially, and I am not persuaded that anyone's position is going to change, but this process, this deliberation, gives us an opportunity to once again put the positions of our various parties on the record and I think that this in essence is about all it is going to accomplish.
Again, I could be dead wrong on that one but, given the time requirements of the House in respect to coming back with a report, we have intended appointees scheduled for next week, and I guess in terms of assisting the clerk in meeting those time lines I suggest that we agree to perhaps disagree and that we go forward in directing the clerk to prepare a report, which obviously is going to contain a dissenting opinion prepared by the opposition parties. In essence we are going to have a report that he can, through his offices, prepare for review prior to tabling, which is going to incorporate the recommendations of the government party plus the dissenting opinion of the two opposition parties, and that is the report that would be tabled in the House. That is how I see it flowing. Does the clerk have any comment or observation on that process as I have outlined it?
Clerk of the Committee: That seems fine.
Mr Silipo: That could be done, Mr Chair, recognizing that they are not on major issues, but there are certainly some issues where there is agreement, if we want to go through those.
The Chair: I think we can incorporate that in the report, acknowledge that there are areas, in terms of both the positions that are being contained in the report, some modest areas, if you will, of agreement, and those can be highlighted as part of the report. I think that should not be a problem. But I think if we want to get into the nitty-gritty of trying to consolidate those views in respect to breaking the report down, that is going to be difficult to do.
Mr Silipo: Okay, that is fine.
The Chair: Any further comments or suggestions on how we are going to approach it? Do we have consensus in respect to that approach? The report will be prepared by the clerk, circulated to all members, and then we can finalize it with a vote whenever that report is prepared and provided to all of us? Okay? Fine.
Anything else we should be dealing with before we adjourn?
Mr Silipo: It is interesting that, although I suppose we came at it from different perspectives, in the comments from the three parties there was agreement that we wanted to focus more attention than perhaps we had been on the review of government agencies, boards and commissions. I think given that there is at least that agreement, it would be useful to also look at that and to see where we are with the ones that are in progress and what we need to do to finalize those and then perhaps look at what additional ones are remaining to do. I presume that means through the subcommittee, Mr Chair. I do not know.
The Chair: Yes. We can have an update from the clerk to the subcommittee and we can report back to the committee in respect to that. I think that is perhaps a useful addition to the report, since we do have agreement that I think there is concern being expressed by all three parties that perhaps that area, the original mandate of the committee, is being neglected.
Mr Grandmaître: Absolutely. My question was, when will this committee be able to meet with our agencies?
The Chair: As Mr Silipo suggested, and it is an appropriate one, we will take that to the subcommittee as soon as possible and review the status in respect to some of the committees that we have looked at and have not finalized and what else is out there that we want to look at in the very near future. Mr Bradley?
Mr Bradley: Just to express a dissenting view here from what appears to be a majority view, though I see the limitations of what we are doing under the rules that we have -- personally expressed, only a personal point of view -- I do not believe that I see a necessity to head after that many agencies at the expense of the other. I understand the feeling of disappointment in dealing with the other; some of my colleagues have their own views, but I hope that there will still be an opportunity when the appropriate occasion arises to interview people who come before the committee, even on the very limited basis that we can.
The Chair: I think the indication was simply an expression of concern that all the focus of this committee in the last period of time was sorely in want of balance.
Mr Bradley: Yes, I understand that.
Mr Silipo: In fact, Mr Chair, we do have at least one, if not two lists -- I guess one; there will be a second one presumably out of today -- that the subcommittee will need to take a look at in terms of possible reviews.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr Bradley: Just do not close any doors, Mr Wiseman, to potential opportunities. Let's put it that way.
The Chair: Let's make sure we do not open another can of worms and I will adjourn the meeting.
The committee adjourned at 1137.