That's an important question. It is one of the fundamental functions of Parliament, obviously.
I'm a little surprised. There was one recommendation that Judge Gomery made that I thought was very good that hasn't been picked up in the legislation, but it hasn't been picked up in anything else that I've heard the government say. Justice Gomery said to increase the resources available to parliamentary committees.
By most standards--of the United States, I won't even speak, but most other countries have far greater support for their parliamentarians and their parliamentary committees than we have in Canada. So you're really trying to operate on a shoestring. The Library of Parliament does a formidable job for you, but there aren't all that many of them.
So, number one, if the government and the parliamentarians saw fit to increase resources for committees, I think that could do quite a lot. That could give you good research reports.
I used to be responsible for the main estimates, but I was a Treasury Board official. The thing is that thick. You can't as parliamentarians get into that unless somebody has done some research and says, “Hey, take a look at this”. You need the staff support and the analysis before you come to the table. So that's number one.
Number two is a question of how Parliament wants to organize itself. This is something that has always kind of puzzled me, because historically--I'm not just talking about the present government, I'm talking about governments that I've known over a period of time--there was not very much system. Somebody is appointed parliamentary secretary, they serve two years, and then their term is up. So, okay, we'll make you chair of this committee; it doesn't matter if you know anything about it or not, and whoever is the chair of that committee goes off to do something else. You get random substitution of members on committees.
There are a number of practices that are actually, to some degree, I think, within the control of Parliament itself, and there, parliamentarians have to make a judgment call as to which of these functions is the most important--because there are reasons you do substitutions. If you really wanted to get into the financial structure of the department, you could organize a series of hearings, and officials, I can tell you, would really enjoy coming and giving you a two-hour briefing, saying, “Look, here's how we're organized. Here are the main programs. Here is the budget. Here is our history. There's the background. Now, what do you want to get into?” At future meetings you could say, “Well, you know what? We're really curious about your regional programs.” So you'd start burrowing into those.
But that's a question of how a parliamentary committee chooses to organize its work. Officials can't do that for you, and to some extent, even the government can't do it for you. It's parliamentarians themselves.