I just want to reiterate that I definitely spoke directly to Ms. Sherman. I believe I spoke to her on more than one occasion. There was email correspondence. I think there were phone calls. She was the point person, I understood, in the Privy Council Office to be dealing with this matter, which makes sense given her role in respect of senior personnel more generally.
I am going to leave the specifics as to what she was saying to Mr. Walbourne to those witnesses. I was not part of any of those conversations. I had no interaction with Mr. Walbourne, nor did I try to. The issue around the anonymity and how much information is needed is probably an important one in the sense that I think the challenge, in the absence of really knowing any information, is that it may not be possible to identify what the possible routes are that could lead to a resolution, and by resolution I mean an investigation of the issue.
Figuring out what route is the right route may in part depend on understanding more context about either what happened or whether there had been some other process related to it, and so I think these were all details that, frankly, I was not engaged in, quite deliberately. As I look back on those issues, that is what I think was happening there, and those are important questions, because, especially if the environment is one where survivors are not confident that the institution is well equipped to protect them and to support them through a process, that is going to be a problem.
That's why I think testimony about what happened here and who said what to whom at what time is important, and I am happy to share what I know. I'm trying to be as candid as I can be, but ultimately this committee also has to make sure that it's not just focused on that chronology and trying to say, “Ha, here is something of interest,” but is going out and listening to people who have lived experience and have been on the wrong end of what seems to be a very problematic institutional structure and institutional culture when it comes to these issues. I hope that is part of what this committee and others are looking at, because I think Canadians, in watching what is unfolding in the media, are rightly shocked and concerned and want to make sure things get better.