Thank you very much, Chair. It's been quite a long time since I appeared in front of a parliamentary committee, something I used to do quite frequently as a deputy minister, so I'm looking forward to the discussion this morning.
As you know, our mandate is to make non-binding, merit-based recommendations to the Prime Minister for appointments to the Senate.
I would just like to say a few words about my background so that it can perhaps help you with your questions.
As a deputy minister for 19 years, I was able to see the work of Parliament first-hand, because there are many pieces of legislation that come from various departments, as you know. As a deputy minister, you have to follow the process as it goes through the House of Commons and through the Senate, and be able to work, and rework sometimes, with the minister and the Department of Justice, some of the content of that legislation. That is one area where I was able to see first-hand the, let's say, architecture of the Parliament of our country.
I was also brought close to the work of the House and the Senate when I was president of CIDA. Many countries around the world wanted to learn from our own experience here. I'm thinking in particular of South Africa, for example, with which we worked very closely on their constitutional review. They were very interested in our form of federalism but also in how the institutions of the state were working in Canada. They were looking elsewhere, of course, but we were the key supporter to help them learn from the rest of the world, and then, of course, to adapt and make their own decisions at the end.
I'm using South Africa, but there were many other countries that were in the same situation. Especially after 1989 and the fall of the Soviet Union, many countries in central and eastern Europe were also interested in what we were doing. We were able, during that period, to do some twinning with various institutions of our own country to help those countries to think through how they could improve the situation in their own country.
Perhaps the last point I would like to make is that when I was chair of the board of Transparency International, which is an anti-corruption organization, people used to tell me that I would have work for the rest of my life to deal with this issue. However, one has to be an optimist, and we worked very hard in this very important area to try to help countries around the world build the kinds of institutions that could prevent corruption and deal with it when it happens. Also, to ensure that the rule of law works in the countries where corruption is high, we worked on conventions and recommended legislation. Again, there was quite a lot of work in this regard, which I think will be helpful to the work that we need to do at this time.
That's all I'd like to say, Mr. Chair.
It will be my pleasure to answer your questions.
Thank you.