There was silence, right? They said, “Let's get the federal government to do this.” That was basically it. They all love the idea, but there's very little money floating up to put towards it.
Would it last in the private sector? I don't think so, unless there were some assured funding streams on which it could depend. If there were an allocated funding stream from all 14 levels of government, I think that would work. Having certain caveats or what have you associated with the funding such that it would have to meet certain performance standards, for instance, that are out in the open and clear, I think would be important.
I go back to the way the government is working right now, and there are three issues that come to mind. Two deal with StatsCan and one deals with the National Energy Board.
On the two with StatsCan, we're all aware of the long-form census debate, and that was resolved by the chief statistician resigning in protest because the government had a requirement to make some changes that didn't seem, in his opinion, to be appropriate. That's an example of where government gets directly involved in that activity. A second one was the impasse between StatsCan and Shared Services over the computer systems. One thing that I think would be vital in having something be successful is a top-of-the-line new type of artificial intelligence that anyone can use with very little training. I don't see that happening any time soon within the federal family, given other issues such as being paid on time, for example—figure that out first and then look into the future.
In terms of the National Energy Board, some of their analysis done several years ago was limited to current policies at the time. Their scenario analyses, which may have looked at different options, weren't allowed to include alternative policy scenarios.
Those are examples of where it would be difficult to work in the private sector and is difficult to work in the public sector. Either one will work if you resolve some of those issues: funding in the private sector and legislative independence in the public sector.