Thank you.
Perhaps, if I may say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
In case we might possibly take our work lightly—the global “we”—we've been flabbergasted, frankly, at the response by the public to these two books that were released a week ago. We've had over 1,100 folks purchasing them.
Just as an aside, that part of it all goes to charity.
But here's the point. I'd like, if you'd permit, Mr. Chair, to leave you a copy of both the album and the story. It's not all about state funerals, but there are two significant chapters that are in fact about state occasions as they apply to funerals. I'd be more than happy to leave those with the committee.
When you have a spare moment—I know you don't have many spare moments, honourable members—it's not a long dissertation, but I think it will give you some notion of how we've gone through this. We've been involved with something like 22 state funerals or partial state funerals. My colleague Don Renaud—who's behind me here—looked after Pierre Trudeau's service on our company's behalf. We go back to Mackenzie King, way back in 1950.
So I would like to leave that thought with you. We do have also, if you would permit me to table it with you, a manual—maybe it's on file already—written by Sergeant Major Eric Young, retired RCMP, that applies primarily to RCMP funerals but also flows over into other aspects of state occasions.
Maybe it's better to chat at question time. I think I'll leave it at that for now. I'd be more than delighted to have these distributed later.