I never had the opportunity of reading the letter myself. It came into the department and it went through the system, as general correspondence usually does, and so I didn't have the opportunity of reading this letter.
My take on this clearly was that I was made aware of the appraisal, but under the.... When I say I was made aware of the appraisal, I was made aware that an appraisal had been requested, that the board of directors had indeed made the appraisal known to the Privy Council, as the law requires them to do. I wasn't put into that loop.
Later on, I asked my officials why I wasn't involved in that loop, but the law does not oblige this board of directors—as was the case, for instance, when I was Minister of Transport—to involve me in the decision-making about the evaluation of the individual.
I'd just add to that, Mr. Rae, my take on that issue. Particularly the correspondence that led up to it, the correspondence I had seen from Mr. Beauregard, dealt with some ongoing issues, whether it was Afghanistan or whether it was the Prime Minister's trip, for instance, to China, where he suggested that the Prime Minister raise some of the human rights cases. There was no indication in the correspondence I had from Mr. Beauregard that any problems were occurring at Rights and Democracy.
