I have to admit, Madam Chair, that I've been quite taken aback by the objections to this appointment that have been flooding into my office. I think we all know that part of the mandate of CIHR is the commercialization. I think there was, from a lot of the community, a well-articulated need to have someone on the board that had some experience in getting research into practice and into the market.
Dr. Beaudet, you have stated the ethical declaration, the conflict of interest. What's also being expressed is that a present employee of a company that has its prime responsibility to its shareholders.... The concern would be in terms of the conflict of interest declaration. There has obviously been articulated a great deal of concern about recusing oneself at multiple policy-setting positions of the governing council, which could provide a huge gap if there were another appointment, like somebody from an incubator side, or somebody from the MaRS side, or a retired professor emeritus who doesn't actually see that. I don't think any of us wants to see CIHR reduced in the estimation of the public by the fact that any policy decision could be perceived to be questioned because of the interest of the pharmaceutical industry.
I want to know how you would deal with the perception, but also the actual practice of declaring a conflict of interest on so many issues that would come to the governing council, and how often it would be seen as inappropriate. I think you actually have to deal with the fact that the advisor, unfortunately, has a history of transgressions against the integrity of science, and since 2002 has paid substantial--