Thank you, and thank you for both your presentations.
I think what you've done is underline the importance of the tools that are available to what in your case I'll call the fourth estate to do the job that I think is severely lacking in our society; that is, to give us a window into how decisions are being made and what those decisions are. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper and do a content analysis of the stories. Today you'll pick up the paper and see a tabloid story being thrown out as news. I think that's a sad state in many ways. You have to then do an analysis to ask what's lacking; why are we being offered this as news? I would suggest what you've presented is the fact, that we don't have access to the information; we don't have a window in.
I can't dispute or even counter some of the things that are in this bill, in terms of the goals. What I'm hearing from you is the same thing: these are laudable goals. The problem—and my colleague, Mr. Martin, has mentioned this before—is we don't have a window in to assess whether these goals are being met.
I appreciate, Mr. Rubin, what you've said about the extended powers of certain people. But on a couple of your recommendations, Mr. Rubin—and then I'd turn to you, Mr. McKie, and some of your comments about access to information—you talked about the importance of changing the proposed Public Appointments Commission. I couldn't agree with you more. We have some amendments that we will be putting forward.
The fact that you're going to try to change accountability through the PMO.... Good public policy shouldn't be dependent upon there being a benevolent person in office; it should be based on having good structures, and then functions that follow.
I'm curious about your concerns regarding lobbying and the statements you've made and the recommendations. Maybe I'll just start with that, Mr. Rubin, and your concerns with how this bill is structured. I'm someone who has been very concerned about lobbying and the effects lobbyists have on public policy and on access to decision-makers. Would you elaborate on that, please?