Merci. The deputy ministerial community in Canada is quite interesting. One of the very good political scientists who has studied this, you might conclude, took a turn up in profession or down when he became a politician—Stéphane Dion—but his findings were that deputy ministers in Canada, in comparison with their counterparts in Britain, France, the United States, Germany, and so on, are younger when they are appointed, have less experience in government, less experience in the department, and stay in a department a shorter time than their counterparts in the other countries.
For example, in Britain most people at the deputy ministerial level—permanent secretary—have that as their last appointment before retiring, and they are normally appointed on the expectation that they serve five to six years.
In Canada, the last statistics I was satisfied with suggested a stay of deputy ministers of about two and a half years. Now it's perhaps slightly longer, but it depends which department you look at how long it is.
The only figures I've seen on the average time of the tenure of one minister and one deputy together was in a study by a former Clerk of the Privy Council, Gordon Osbaldeston. He found the average “marriage”, if you could call it that, of a minister and deputy minister lasted for approximately one year, which in terms of how long it takes to develop a policy and get it into action is what I would call a one-night stand rather than a real marriage. It again might be longer, but I'm not convinced of it.
I don't think it's right to overstate the length of experience in office or the length of experience in departments of deputy ministers in Canada. That was something that concerned the Gomery commission—as it has many other observers who have looked at it—and that is going to have to be dealt with.
Concerning whistle-blowing, the Gomery commission did not make any recommendations on the whistle-blowing aspect, although that wasn't in its terms of reference. One of the reasons is that the research that was done for it suggested that whistle-blowing is a necessary last resort but really not a very good thing, in the sense that most whistle-blowers are not happy they did it; they regret having done it afterwards. I'm not saying it's not needed, but I am saying there should be ways of resolving differences other than whistle-blowing.
I have a terrible worry about the $1,000 reward for whistle-blowing: that it's going to look more like 30 pieces of silver.
Excuse me, I have forgotten your last point, I regret. Je deviens peut-être plus âgé.