I'm just about finished, Mr. Chairman. The rest of it merely deals with the term. We did feel it to be thorough and complete. We recommend terms of five years, reappointed for further possibility, but removed for cause, if necessary, as well.
Report to Parliament, proposed subsection 1.1(4) states,(4) In its report, the Commission shall identify any material failure to comply with its code of practice by any department, Minister or official.
Remuneration and appointment of staff, of course, are all administrative.
What we're trying to get at is that this would change forever the idea that these appointments would be made from a single desk in the PMO, by a single partisan individual, which has been the practice until very recently, when an attempt was made to change this. I have lived through previous attempts to improve the appointments process. I remember in March 2004, when the last President of the Treasury Board announced that the appointments process was going to be different, and before we knew it, Feeney was appointed to the post office. And this was in complete contradiction to the promises they made. Glen Murray was appointed to the National Round Table. Even though the committee reviewed his appointment and turned it down, he was still appointed.
Nothing we've done to date has satisfied this problem of patronage. I lay this before the committee as, I think, a well-crafted attempt to end patronage in Ottawa forever. I think we should be proud, as a committee, if we can do that and make this a key pillar of the Federal Accountability Act.
Thank you.