Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
Mr. McCandless, it seems to me that what you're describing, although you're putting it in a unique way, is simply good public sector management, in which there is a normal expectation that the chief senior person will ensure sound public policies on channels for whistle-blowers to report apparent errors, public access to information within the department, and fair treatment of individuals of the public who are served by the department. The public accountability officer really is just that: a combination internal ombudsperson, privacy commissioner, and whistle-blower protection commissioner.
While we can deal with symptoms of poor internal management by adding more and more independent officers of Parliament, I'm concerned that as this group grows, we may be creating a parallel universe between Parliament and the executive in which the officers are not really directly accountable to Parliament and certainly are not to the electorate. By allowing proliferation of these offices, we almost remove responsibility from senior managers to look after these matters properly internally. If we're going to have these officers, their role should be remedial over time, so that accountability within the departments that you describe is actually there as a natural part of management, and only in exceptional cases would anybody have to make use of the residual independent office.
That would seem to me to be the healthy way that a public administration should grow. We understand that mistakes will happen and that we may have to have a residual, independent review or action, but it would be justified only if its role were remedial over time to improve accountability. I wonder if either one of you would want to comment on that.