Shared Services is seeking additional funding through the supplementary estimates. Yesterday, our committee heard from Wayne Smith, who resigned as the chief statistician to protest that Shared Services was impinging on Statistics Canada's independence.
Notwithstanding some good words in the economic update about independence for Statistics Canada, Mr. Smith believes that the government has not done anything to remove the effective veto that Shared Services has over Statistics Canada's work. I'm wondering if you could tell us what communication Mr. Smith had with you and your secretariat before he resigned, and also what you're doing in funding Shared Services to try to resolve this problem and ensure an independent national statistics agency.