I certainly want to address Mr. Adler's intervention. I was not being critical of our chair; I have great respect for our chair. I believe that Mr. Blenkarn was chair during a time when there was respect for the independence of parliamentary committees. That is not the fault of our chair, but it is not normal. It has become worse in my time here. I really believe that at some point we need to have a meaningful discussion among parliamentarians of all parties about what a more independent committee system, well resourced, with the capacity to invest more significantly in research and public policy development, could actually mean for good governance and for effectively strengthening the capacity for members of Parliament to do their jobs.
There's talk sometimes about the other place, the future of the other place, and changes. If you look at Senate committees, Senate committees sometimes do exceptional work. If you look at the substantive work done by some of the Senate committees, there is important work being done there. Part of the reason for that has been, in the past at least, that Senate committees were less partisan.
Imagine how farcical it would be if the justice committee were debating budget provisions. Just consider that for a moment. It is equally farcical for the House of Commons finance committee to debate changes to the process by which we appoint Supreme Court judges. This is very serious. I sometimes wonder how the heck our chair actually does this, but he is given what he has to deal with and, as former Prime Minister Mulroney used to say, it's hard to polish a turd. This is a difficult situation.