[Inaudible--Editor]...brought this first to the attention of the current minister, Diane Finley. The Toronto Star published an exposé last summer in which it made a concerted effort to find out what was happening with the area of discipline. They produced an award-winning series of news articles. Members were very concerned about that, as were other immigration watchers in the country. I actually wrote to the minister at that time, because someone on the minister's staff was quoted in that article as saying that it was up to the members to evaluate CSIC.
I wrote a lengthy letter to the minister, setting out the specific steps that the board had taken to make sure that members did not have any such ability, even though, of course, that was the intention, that was the vision. I can understand why anyone would think the organization was operating that way, as most organizations do, but in our case that was not happening. I sent that out in July to the minister, and I received a non-committal letter, indicating that they would look into it.
On your second point about another authority, I'm not aware of another authority that would be the logical one here, with a federal mandate like this. I think the matter of principles has to be established. No matter who is sitting in the chair, there have to be expectations that in this country things work on accountability—that is what protects the mandate—and if the members who are interested, and have been involved for as long as some of us have, had the ability to make a plan.... We have lots of experience; we have lots of good ideas, but the principles have to be established, and that's what has happened here.
It's a unique operation in that for three years the board did have the legal right to make all decisions unilaterally, and there was a reason for that: there were no members. But still and all, I put myself in that situation. If I knew that it was a team effort here and that you people were all going to be members, I would have been consulting, and certainly on the bylaws, which are the contracts between the members and the board. There was lots of opportunity. Unfortunately, what happened was that the board became increasingly enshrined in the lack of input, and now we have the situation we do.