Great. I have two other questions.
One is on the use of consultants in the public service. I'm very concerned about how consultants are being used in the public service. It is recent, but it also goes back the last three or four years, at least since I've been talking to public servants about it.
The fact of the matter is that we are having consultants being brought in who don't fit into the accountability framework that most of us are used to. So these are different and separate from being brought in as exempt staff from the public service or people from minister's staff who then are dropped into the public service. I'm talking about people who are consultants. Has this been a concern of yours? Is it something you're looking at?
Secondly, the government most recently announced that they've put together a team formed with people like Mr. Tessier and others to talk about how to improve the public service and also to look to the future to recruitment and other issues. I have a lot of concerns about this, in that none of the nine people presently are working in the public service, and I'm very concerned about the gap left vis-à-vis their mandate and how it connects to the present-day public service.
If you look at the last government, one of the problems we had with the previous government, my party at least, was that public servants weren't being consulted. They were being told how to do things without being asked what the problems were and what the solutions were. I'm concerned we're seeing the same thing with both consultants being brought in and, secondly, a nine-person panel being brought in that does not have the connective tissue to the present public service.
I would like your comments on those two points.