In the design of the Public Appointments Commission and in the order in council that created it, the notion was to have a body that would be involved in overseeing the selection process proposed by agencies, boards, commissions, and departments for filling those positions, to ensure that the process is open, fair, and transparent, and that a clear statement of qualifications is made and the people applying for the positions are evaluated on the basis of those qualifications.
The thought was that the best way to proceed would be that the body that is involved in overseeing the selection process and ensuring they're adequate would also be the body that would perform an audit function or an oversight function to ensure that the selection processes are in fact being followed, and they're being followed according to not only the letter of how they're drafted but also the intent.
To give that audit function to a body that's completely separate from the Governor in Council appointment process then raises the issue that, although the Public Service Commission is expert in this field, it does so for public servants and not for Governor in Council appointments. It was felt that it made more sense to have a body that is constantly overseeing this process, from start to end, be the one that performed the audit function, rather than give the audit function to a separate body that's not at all involved in the Governor in Council appointment process, simply because the Public Appointments Commission would be aware of the incredible variety of requirements for positions.
There are, as you mentioned, a couple of thousand Governor in Council positions. The enabling legislation for those positions put in all sorts of requirements in terms of the type of training that's required, in terms of consultations that have to be undertaken, and so on. It is a very specialized field, and the thought was that a body that was devoted exclusively to overseeing that function would be best placed to exercise an audit function, as opposed to giving that function to the Public Service Commission. The same argument would hold true for giving that oversight function to parliamentary committees.
We also looked at models from other jurisdictions, notably British Columbia, notably the United Kingdom, and in those instances, they have given these responsibilities to a single body that performs that function, including the audit function.
So that was the thinking behind this model.