Thank you.
You have a very specific mandate, and I think you have very carefully answered within the specifics of your mandate. The parts that strike me, and that trouble me at the same time, began, I guess, with the word “de-constraining”. That's an awful word, sort of a created word, and usually awful created words are words that are intended to hide something in that they don't quite say as they...as what might be.
I think you said in your statement that really it was your task to look at the...or your criticisms had to do with the fact that a lot of what you were talking about didn't have to do with performance-based; you mentioned that there were a lot of political considerations that went alongside considerations of performance.
And yes, it isn't your mandate to look into what those political considerations are and how that full decision is made, but what strikes me in an instance like this is that...and I hope that, with other witnesses, we will get into what those political considerations are that affect a decision that one might assume would be substantially performance-based. Otherwise, you really....
Performance-based, I would assume, is sort of the horse ahead of the cart--where the horse should be--and then you have other considerations, once you know what that best performance might be, and you end up taking those other things into consideration.
Is that a fair characterization of where your mandate is very limited--you were talking about technical things--that in fact those things that are non-performance-based are beyond your mandate, and that the decision then also includes political considerations, which are outside of your mandate?
Is that all correct?