Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm here not as a member of this committee but due to a motion the committee passed, which requires me to be here if I should want to put forward amendments. If you had not passed that motion, committee, I would be able to put forward amendments and speak to them at report stage. I still object to the process, but I will dive in.
First of all, I'm really overall pleased that the government is moving to improve the independence of Statistics Canada. I don't think it has gone far enough, and I wish to associate myself with a number of the comments that have been made to you by Paul Thomas and Wayne Smith. You'll note that a number of my amendments are based on their testimony.
The first amendment that we put forward is in relation to ensuring the independence of the appointment process, the fundamentals of chief statistician. We believe Bill C-36 should be amended, as Dr. Thomas recommended, to have an advisory appointment panel of three distinguished people of impeccable credentials.
You can see PV amendment 1 says that should the minister establish such an advisory appointment panel, it recommends one candidate and one alternate candidate...that the advisory panel be composed of three persons with appropriate knowledge. And I just want to explain the third subsection to committee members. It's just to ensure that we don't run into any royal recommendation issues for an amendment being put forward by a member of the committee as opposed to the government putting it in the guts of the bill. That's why we're recommending they not receive any remuneration. That's not because I don't believe distinguished people don't deserve remuneration, but I wanted to avoid any issues with the admissibility of this amendment.
Thank you.