Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Like Mr. Warawa, I certainly respect the autonomy of the Office of the Auditor General—and our party respects that autonomy, as we should. Obviously, the public has a great deal of admiration for the Office of the Auditor General, for you personally as Auditor General, and I think also for the office of the Commissioner of the Environment and for Ms. Gélinas personally, which I think is one of the reasons why there's public interest in understanding what's happened here.
Obviously, as we are a standing committee of the House of Commons and members of Parliament, we have our own responsibilities to consider what's happened and to make sure we make our decisions and Parliament makes decisions on the basis of good information.
Let me refer to your statement of yesterday to this committee. As you know, the committee has now passed a motion that this should be public, and with your concurrence. In paragraph three of yesterday's statement, you said:
...I wish to advise you that the current Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Johanne Gélinas, will be leaving the position to pursue other opportunities. She will be announcing her specific plans once they are finalized.
It was your wish to come before us to inform us of this. It seems when you say she “will be leaving the position to pursue other opportunities”.... I get the impression from this that it was her wish, that she was leaving so that she could pursue other opportunities. I'm trying to understand whether that's accurate.