Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, and Mr. Sims as well, for being here.
Mr. Minister, I have no hope of being able to convince you to the opposite, but do you have any sense of the significance on independence of killing this program? That's really what this is about.
Let me give you a scenario, and this is the perception that a lot of lawyers in this country have of your government's role with regard to the commission. Their perception is that the commission has conducted their role in terms of their reputation both nationally and internationally as having, as you say, acted as a broker to commission studies in a wide variety of areas, as you've just heard from Mr. MĂ©nard. They've done that well by international standards, perhaps better than any of the other commissions internationally. What they see now is a government that wants to pick and choose who is going to do the independent research that needs to be done. It's now tainted by a government that has gotten rid of the commission, is going to pick the researchers themselves, and is going to pick them from an ideological or partisan political standpoint, rather than allowing this independent commission to determine both what studies are going to be conducted and who is going to conduct them.
As a result, the perception in the country by most lawyers I've talked to is that the credibility is gone. Research, when commissioned by a government--yours in particular--is going to be completely tainted by ideological or partisan political consideration.
Do you have any appreciation of that reality in the country, at least in the legal community, among both academics and practitioners?