In terms of the enabling legislation that creates all these GIC positions, there are almost 3,000 GIC positions out there that are established in legislation.
Regarding areas for improvement, you know better than I do what the legislative process is like and how bills get amended in committee and how the bills will change in the course of adoption in the House of Commons. There is one thing that is evident to me, which is that there's a lack of consistency across all this enabling legislation. You would think that in a structure as big and complex as the Government of Canada you would have templates. You would have, say, 12 types of organizations, and if it's this type of organization, this is what the appointment provisions look like. It would all be pretty well set out in advance and you'd have a clear and coherent picture of how to proceed. But because legislation evolves and drafting techniques evolve, there's a certain inconsistency in how enabling legislation is drafted all across the board. That's something we have to struggle with, and we have to figure out and interpret the provisions and ensure that we're proceeding in a consistent manner.
The important thing is that I think the overall framework is a good one in that it provides the necessary indications of qualifications. When a qualification is absolutely required for a position, it will oftentimes be set out in the legislation. It will say that the person must have this as a qualification. In some instances, legislation will provide that certain groups have to be consulted. For example, for port authorities, users have to be consulted for a certain number of the positions. So you have provisions like that.
So I think that overall framework is good, and I think it provides the necessary indications of specific requirements, while at the same time leaving enough discretion for the government to try to manage this effectively. For me it's a process of continuous improvement. For example, we want to have open selection processes for a growing number of positions. We're focusing on the heads of agencies. There are certain agencies out there that run qualification processes, and we want to extend that and improve them. We have a website. People are apprised of openings for government positions on the website. We want to make that website interactive. We want to improve it. So it's a matter for us to keep improving it as we go along.