I'll focus on this issue of the apparent conflict of interest. That is something that other codes do, including some of the provincial codes. Many codes actually outline what a real conflict of interest is, what a potential conflict of interest is, and what an apparent conflict of interest is. The apparent standard is something that... I know what the commissioner is saying when she says it's not actually written in the code, but the code kind of does it anyway, in the sense that the code asks you to use a reasonable person's standard. If you receive a particular gift, how would that strike a reasonable person, or would that create the reasonable assumption that there's something not right going on?
That's fine, but the upshot of using the apparent is that it sort of invites the public office holder to put himself or herself in the position of the public looking at what's going on in a way that's much more explicit, and to think about the appearance of it and about how it is going to look if it lands in the newspaper. How is it going to look during an election campaign? Going back to this principal idea, public office holders might be encouraged to think more broadly about upholding ethical standards and staying away from things that are going to make everybody look bad.
In the 1960s, when Prime Minister Pearson was first dealing with this issue with his cabinet, that was what he was most concerned about. He was much more concerned with the appearance of wrongdoing than he was with what was actually going on. Politically, as you know better than I do, that's your problem, right? When everybody's talking about something as if it's a problem, there's a political imperative to try to manage that. I don't know why you wouldn't put the appearance standard in. I don't see the downside to doing it.