Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to be clear that we are not in any way trying to be dismissive of what we've heard. These are very large businesses. In fact, we do over 200 million interactions every single year, and while I want us to get it right every single time, we don't. What I've tried to describe is more the approach we take when concerns are raised.
Mr. Albas, you described two scenarios. One scenario was around what you've heard from employees. In this perspective, it is deeply embedded in our culture that we are constantly encouraging our teams to feel free to speak up and be candid, and we have many mechanisms in order to do so. Some of these are confidential and anonymous, if employees are not comfortable talking to their manager, or to their manager's manager, or perhaps to me.
We do have a lot of rigour around these approaches. However, from time to time, there is inappropriate behaviour. My assurance to the committee is that when these situations are identified, they are thoroughly investigated and reviewed case by case, and appropriate action is taken every time, particularly in terms of the spirit of what we are trying to do as a company.
With respect to customers, if I may just go to that side of it, we also have many mechanisms to raise concerns, both in the branch and at higher levels of escalation, which might include me or executive resolution teams, local leadership in the market, and, of course, our ombudsman for situations that we don't feel can be adequately resolved. Finally—and these are quite minimal in the nature of the overall number—there is a very clear path to escalate, as you know, to the ombudsman for financial institutions.