Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for the question.
I'm always loath to enter into an exercise of interpreting the Conflict of Interest Act, given that that's the role of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Ultimately, she is the one who determines where that line is between a private interest and what falls within a general application exception to a private interest. That is exactly what the commissioner has done in developing the scope of how this wall was constructed. It wasn't me or anyone in the Privy Council Office who developed the interpretation about what were going to be matters that were of general application or not. It ultimately came down to what the commissioner determined.
To speak to it in the most generic of senses, the idea of general application would be, for example, making an amendment to the Income Tax Act or the Criminal Code that simply applies to taxpayers or citizens across the board that isn't designed to try to promote or drive a specific policy outcome in a very specific arena.
I realize I'm giving you something very generic, but for me to go any further than that, I'd have to step into the shoes of the commissioner, and that's just not something I feel would be appropriate for me to do, given her role with respect to actually providing the interpretation of this legislation.