Yes, I'm happy to.
My recollection is that the public accounts committee unanimously recommended to the government that deputy ministers should be accountable to the public accounts committee, and not as is the current practice, that they respond only in the name of their minister. I thought that would carry more weight than it did carry as against a letter received from some very highly placed people, which seems to have influenced the Prime Minister to decide not to follow that recommendation, not to follow the recommendation of my commission, not to follow the recommendation of the public accounts committee, not to follow the recommendation of the Lambert commission 30 years ago. It seems to fly in the face of all the opinions.
The reason for the desirability of a certain level of accountability by deputy ministers is to depoliticize their position. As matters stand, the only person to whom a deputy minister needs to account for his actions, whether he's made a terrible mistake, whether he's neglected his responsibilities, whether he's committed some sort of an illegality, is to either his minister or the prime minister--the minster because he's the person who oversees the government policy in his particular department, and the prime minister because it's the prime minister who names the deputy minister. The public or individual parliamentarians never have the right to ask a deputy minister, why did you do this, or explain why you failed to do this. Nobody can ask that question. They are unaccountable.