National Defence committee  I have different feelings about leaving as well. I will say that, just to start off. I've been looking at the assignment opportunities for my type of position—GIC opportunities. I have not seen anything there. I'm concerned at this point. July is not that far away, and a transparent process to select the best individual to represent the defence community and the work we do has not started.

National Defence committee  There is no list. As any public service selection process goes ahead, you have to say up front that you're going to create a list or pool of individuals you may use in the future. That was five years ago and there was no announcement like that. The selection process I went through was very transparent.

National Defence committee  Very simply, in certain processes, like a board of inquiry that the military sometimes carries out, we have been asked to provide information on constituents we may have investigated or helped with an investigation. We have not provided that information in the past, but I'm not legally protected from having to provide that information.

National Defence committee  No.

National Defence committee  No, and that area is most problematic for our office. We experience it almost every day. There are so many controls on our office that I would say are not appropriate. They're not illegal by any means; they're just not appropriate. One of the principles of ombudsmanry around the world is that we should be able to hire the people we believe are best able to do the job.

National Defence committee  I believe that my predecessor faced different controls and different issues, probably more severe than what we're experiencing now, but in essence it still continues. One of the issues is that this changes from deputy minister to deputy minister, and that should not be the case, unless there is a government-wide process or a particular issue we are doing incorrectly.

National Defence committee  They have currently proposed cuts on the travel and contracting sides of our budget. They have not been implemented yet because the new fiscal year has not been implemented. We put forward our issues with them. I don't sit on the committees that look at these particular issues, and that is rightly so because we are an independent office.

National Defence committee  That's correct.

National Defence committee  At this point, the proposed cuts should not significantly cut into the work, but we don't know sometimes until we get into it and find out there are issues we need to see to. For example, we might need to go to a base to investigate a particular issue. These types of situations appear during the year.

National Defence committee  I do repeat myself a bit, but I think legislation and the principles of legislation that I put forward and just talked about are one way of doing it. I'm not saying that reporting to Parliament would make it any easier budget-wise, as other independent officers of Parliament experience, but I think the biggest thing, which is due to our constituents—the defence community we represent—is real independence and the perception of independence.

National Defence committee  Absolutely.

National Defence committee  In legislation, it could be as it is with the Auditor General. In its legislation, the mandated timelines for responses are a way of making sure departments respond in a timely manner. That's one way it could be imparted in legislation. However, I would come back to the other part of it: It doesn't mean that they have to accept those particular recommendations.

National Defence committee  Exactly. We're not naive. Sometimes it does take a longer time to analyze and assess the recommendation and so on. That's absolutely true. I would expect at least an acknowledgement of the report. I would expect at least, if there was an issue with getting a response back in time, that we receive an explanation.

National Defence committee  As I think I've said a number of times, it would be legislation and various pieces in legislation that would stop me and my staff from being compelled, mandated timelines, and the ability to escalate beyond the political government in power to the national institution, Parliament, which represents all Canadians and the defence community.

National Defence committee  In some of our previous reports, we outlined some of the issues we saw with getting information for members to access their records and so on or for VAC to make an adjudication on their particular benefits. It is better now. They can access those services and access that information as they release, but they still run into some similar simple problems.