Thank you, Madam Chair.
You stated that what you may have said in the past would have no effect on the commission's work. Earlier on, my colleague stated that we are to assess the abilities, skills and experience of possible candidates. But regardless of the commission to which a person is appointed, and its mandate, we have to assess whether the candidate has all of the values expected of him or her. When I refer to values, I'm referring to human values, be they held by Canadians, Quebeckers or persons of another origin.
In your December speech, you also addressed the issue of equalization. You said that the welfare state was creating dependency. I noticed that in this speech you decided to share some of your fundamental convictions. Allow me to say that that might lead people to wonder what your real motivation is, and in fact, you may be asking yourself the same question.
You say that you will not know the names of possible appointees, that you will not take part in anything at all, that you will establish a process and that, further to that, you will report to the Prime Minister, and therefore to the House. Is this very different from what existed previously? I imagine that before you accepted this nomination you looked into the current system. How can we know that this process is going to be better? What will the commission's status be? Will it really report to the Prime Minister's Office? How much do you need in terms of human and financial resources? Will you need three executive directors, a secretary, an assistant, three or four employees, a half a million dollars or $3 million?