Good. Thank you, Chair.
As I indicated in camera—I will say what I said in camera, but I will not say what anyone else said--the last time we met on this issue, the issue of speaking about Mr. Beauregard's widow is exceptionally difficult. I'm reticent to talk about the topic, except it must be spoken about, as she has asked to be able to appear.
In an e-mail I have that I believe came from her, she says:
Please note that I reserve the right to be accompanied by my attorney, Mr. Julius Grey, or his representative, whose service I have retained to represent me in case of any legal action taken against me.
I'm sure from her perspective this is a very reasonable request. It immediately raises the issue, though, which is, again, as I pointed out in our steering committee, what is the purpose of a parliamentary committee.
I think this is a very important principle. We take a look at the number of ministries where the government of the day, headed by the prime minister of the day, has his or her ministers, who take full responsibility for their respective ministries, and that then becomes a direct line back to this standing committee.
The purpose of a standing committee, of course, is to be able to call the minister, call the minister's representatives, take a look at the budgets of the respective ministries in great detail, ask questions, probe, and rightly so by our Canadian parliamentary system, built on the British parliamentary system. The standing committee has the opportunity, on behalf of the people of Canada, to hold the minister to account. It's interesting that although the committee has the right to hold the minister to account, it does not have the right to micromanage the ministry. It is the responsibility, at the end of the day, for the minister of that ministry to ensure that all the details are being taken care of.
Even there it's hard to believe that a minister would become involved in micromanaging his or her own ministry, so this standing committee, even in the direct line with a minister and a ministry, is at least two steps away from micromanaging the ministry.
Over the time I've had the privilege of being here in Ottawa, I've come to value the responsibilities that bureaucrats undertake on behalf of us Canadians. As I've had an opportunity, in particular in foreign affairs, to be outside Canada, I've come to deeply respect the expertise that the foreign ministry has on many issues. It's interesting that sometimes we, as parliamentarians, have a tendency to step into things we shouldn't be stepping into, and potentially upset international apple carts, much to the chagrin of the professional diplomats and their staff.
So we then leapfrog from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, through the deputy ministers, and then we're dealing with the ambassadors to respective countries and we're well down in the chain. Then we go into Tanzania or we go into Hong Kong or we go into Cambodia and make statements that may or may not be helpful. Assuming they're not helpful, then the bureaucracy has the responsibility to be able to clean them up. In other words, they are the professionals on the job who are charged with the responsibility, on behalf of the government but more importantly on behalf of the people of Canada, to carry those things out.
My monologue here is to try to make the point that within the British parliamentary system, within a democracy, there is a place for people in Canada, as citizens of Canada, with certain qualifications, to be able to go to the polls and vote for us to come to this place. That is the starting point of democracy. The Prime Minister, who obviously is the person with the most seats following that election, then forms the government. Again, that is democracy. But their interface with the bureaucracy, whichever bureaucracy they are, is one that must be held in the greatest respect.
I've been rather surprised, since we've had the privilege of being in government, to see the number of times when I have had a sense that the Prime Minister has wanted to go in direction A and it has been clear that the advice that his minister is giving him on a given issue is advising him it should be direction B. I'm also aware of the fact that there is a very valuable role for the Privy Council, which in turn represents the entire bureaucracy in Canada. It has a responsibility to advise its ministers and hence the Prime Minister.
So you have this very valuable and exceptionally important dynamic tension between the people who are elected by the electorate and the people who are actually charged with the responsibility of acting responsibly on behalf of the government and on behalf of the people of Canada who are not elected, who are not politically driven, and who are offering the best possible advice to the Prime Minister. Therefore, for any committee to step outside of that structure is to fundamentally imperil the structure of our basic democracy and the delivery of services and the representation of Canada.