Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wright and Mr. Wild, for being here today.
I think it's important at this point that we remind ourselves as a committee that we are not conducting a Governor in Council appointment review. Mr. Chair, you pointed that out very clearly previously.
The Prime Minister has certainly indicated his confidence in you. I think our primary role as a committee is to be sure that the process that is in place has in fact been followed and that we're confident that this will result in good service to Canadians, and one that has the highest ethical and integrity markers.
I want to run through the process briefly again. You indicated that in April you met with the Ethics Commissioner and then subsequent to that you took time to familiarize yourself with the act, and that the Ethics Commissioner from that recommended that a conflict of interest screen--or as you're terming it, “ethical wall”--be established. In fact, the Ethics Commissioner appeared here not too long ago and indicated to this committee that she had received total cooperation from you through that process.
I also have the privilege of serving on the procedure and House affairs committee. It was just a few weeks back when the Ethics Commissioner was talking to us about the importance of not having such rigid guidelines in place that it actually cuts government off from the possibility of having people like yourself, from the business community, the private sector, actually being able to serve Canadians.
I'm confident that Canadians can have confidence in the process you've indicated, in the transparency that is currently in place in the conflict of interest screen or the ethical wall, and also in your track record as a business person.
Mr. Martin suggested earlier that possibly you came up with this term “ethical wall” out of some daydream one day. But it's obvious from your presentation that this ethical wall is something that's being used in the private sector and in other government sectors.
I'm just wondering if either you or Mr. Wild could give some examples of other areas where these ethical walls or conflict of interest screens have in fact been implemented, how they have operated, and how the process may compare to the process you followed in this particular instance.