Well, I've spoken about how I feel that it's not an abdication at all. I've spoken about the principle of delegation that we apply in many other respects that affect the lives and safety of men and women in uniform, and that in fact it enhances the safety of those men and women to empower leaders to make the right decisions in the right way at the right time. I feel that in the same vein the Chief of the Defence Staff's delegating of some of his responsibilities and authorities as final authority in the grievance process will in no way detract from his accountability or responsibility at the end of the day or from the efficacy of the system.
We balance, with the grievance system, two very challenging objectives. One is the objective of time limits. We have done a lot of work and we have made a lot of changes to allow us to address grievances faster than we have in the past. Frankly, we haven't done well historically, but we're doing much better. We still have work to do, and we hope the trial of the principled process will help us do that.
On the other hand, one of the reasons it takes so long is that we are focused on fairness--making sure that we thoroughly understand the grievance, thoroughly understand the issues involved, understand the precedents that have been set, understand the latitude that is available to the final authority, and are able to render a decision that meets the expectations of full consideration and a fair treatment of the grievance. That takes time. In fact, as we've heard, grievances that get to the final authority can be immensely complex and involve a number of different important principles that need to be reconciled.
So on one hand we have the requirement for timeliness and on the other the requirement for fairness and thoroughness, and it is by the chief's ability to delegate some of his decision-making that we're able to do both: we're able to be thorough and to address the issues in the detail required and manage the complexity, and yet still render a decision in an acceptable timeline. This is why we're pursuing that course of action.