There are just a couple of issues I want to pursue myself, Mr. Kroeger.
First of all, when I look at what goes on in the committee and the problems we've had, one of the issues I see is with a culture of proper administration in some of the departments, and you're quite right, the deputy ministers have a very difficult job. There's a lot of direction from the centre. They're dealing with a lot of horizontal issues, policy issues, and they have the press, the opposition, the NGOs, the courts, access to information requests, endless consultations with stakeholders, etc. It just seems to me that over the last perhaps generation there has been a drifting away from what I call probity and prudence and good administration in their mindset. As Mr. Williams pointed out, we have situations in which even the chief financial officer didn't have financial training. That, to me, would send out all kinds of red flags as to the administration of this department.
Do you have any recommendations on how we can take the pendulum and swing it back? Realizing the difficulties these people are under, the stresses and the challenges, we have to somehow implement a system from the top. It's a cultural thing. I agree with you 100% that we cannot implement 233 additional rules--that's not the way to go--but we have to have a culture of what I call proper administration, and it has to be open and transparent, so that the taxpayers of Canada, when they go to bed at night, are sure that their tax money is spent wisely.