Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think that we as a committee should begin with an apology to all of the courageous whistle-blowers who came forward with information to save the country money, or for whatever reason they came forward; we let them down profoundly. The appointment process was the genesis of that failure.
I was shocked to learn, and the scuttlebutt is in the senior bureaucracy, that she didn't apply for that job at all. In fact, she was head-hunted; she was specifically sought out because the government was looking for a compliant stooge who wouldn't rock the boat. That's the horrifying thing to me. Twelve qualified people applied and were turned away. Another short list of six was developed, and they chose this one person, who turned out to be a maniacal despot the likes of which we haven't seen since George Radwanski.
You say, Ms. Hassard, that we've never exercised this right to fire an officer of Parliament. We did in fact run George Radwanski out on a rail—he's lucky he wasn't tarred and feathered—and his golden parachute was clawed back.
I'm a former union rep and I've dealt with a lot of severance issues. In what lunatic universe does a person get a golden parachute like that when they quit their job? It's unprecedented.
My question is, who negotiated this insane severance package? Why is a gag order a part of that severance package? And what active steps is the PCO taking to get back every penny of that severance package—and I would argue even further, to claw back the wages she was paid, because she didn't do her job?
What steps are actively being taken by you to get that money back?