Thank you very much.
I really appreciate your testimony today, sir.
I understand that politics and business can sometimes be a messy business, and the point of the ethics screen, ethics standards and the Conflict of Interest Act are to try to ensure that the public interest is best served, as you well know, and that public officials serve with integrity.
Some comments were made about Mr. Wright. I knew him a long time. He was one of the most ethical people we know. The firm he represented was much more narrowly focused than the firm that Mr. Carney came from, which is very broad and affects a variety of sectors across the country. I think it's a very different standard for a prime minister who decides versus a very senior adviser who advises.
In the United States, the expectation of public office holders is to force their officials to sell all their interests and give a very attractive tax rollover so that there would be no suspicion of conflict, which is something that the Clerk of the Privy Council did. The Prime Minister clearly had a different idea for himself.
In the context of what is the formal process for screen versus the informal process for screening, we're really trying to get, in this committee, down to the nub of where the general application ends and where a disproportionate interest begins.
I say this with great affection to those who serve, but Mr. Sabia, Mr. Carney, Mr. Hodgson and you, Mr. Blanchard, all know the same people. You come from the same investment world. You have many of the same friends.
Who's screening who here?