I agree with Mr. Petit on the first half of his remarks. However, I'm not sure where he was headed with the second. One of the problems is that there was a devolution of responsibilities to the departments. That was done in 2003. When the Liberals were in power, there was significant oversight by the Privy Council because there is a direct link with the Prime Minister. Based on the last interview, which was conducted on Tuesday, there no longer appears to be that kind of oversight. People couldn't respond.
Mr. Lemieux told us that we should perhaps have people from the Canada Public Service Agency appear again. I think they'll tell us that the changes were made at the political level, not by the public service. So we should bring in the person responsible for the political level and ask that person to explain to us how the new structure works and how they intend to control that, because there have been structural changes and no one seems to be responsible for anything. As I said the other day, I worked with Mr. Bélanger in that field. I can tell you that there is incredible resistance to the official languages in the departments. It's enough for one person to make things difficult and everything stops. As we know, not all the departments are at the same point; some are much more advanced than others.
I believe we are all people with a sense of responsibility. We don't want to waste the minister's time; we know how busy ministers are and how busy we are as well, but I think it will be difficult to finish the report without at least knowing what the structure is and whether we are comfortable with the way that's managed. I think we must now speak to the political level.
Thank you.