Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I can assure you, Ms. Hassard, that you won't have any trouble with mosquitoes today if you go outside. But that's not what my question is about.
I have seen for myself in some departments a fairly serious problem regarding senior officials, the executive cadre. These people were often appointed temporarily. I'll give you an example. In Vancouver, there is a large Fisheries and Oceans office, not to actually name it. In two years, there were three acting managers. It wasn't working anymore at all. There were serious internal problems. The trouble was that the historical culture of the department was not being passed on, and that meant that the office was totally dysfunctional. During the Fraser River sockeye salmon crisis, the problem was identified and determined to be serious.
Instead of appointing people temporarily, appointments should be more long-term, permanent, so as to avoid a lot of problems pertaining to the operation of certain departments.