Sure. I have a number of comments about the issue of gifts. First of all, we spend too much time talking about gifts. From my observation of the federal level and certainly what I saw at the provincial level in Ontario, I don't think it is a major problem. I would like to see the committee, and the act, and the commissioner spend more time on prevention, creating the ethical infrastructure sorts of things that I talked about.
Second, there is a problem that I believe the commissioner identified. The act prohibits public office holders from accepting any gifts that are meant to impact, or to attempt to impact, upon the public office holder's decision-making, but a different provision of the act requires the disclosure of any gifts that cumulatively are more than $200. In effect, they get meshed together and many public office holders think they can accept any gift under $200 and anything over $200 has to be disclosed. The public office holder doesn't want to disclose it so he won't accept a gift over $200, which I don't think is necessarily the intent or the design of the act.
Last, I don't support the commissioner's recommendation for disclosure of all gifts of $30 or more for a number of reasons. One relates to a point—