Mr. Chair, the Standing Committee on Official Languages in the other place asked us to examine this issue closely, as you have done here in the House. They have commissioned a study on the impact of horizontality on the decision to transfer the secretariat. After an open competition, the contract was awarded to Professor Donald Savoie, who will be conducting the study. The study, which is to be quite detailed, will be published late in June, but we have made use of it to write the chapter on this issue. Our recommendations to strengthen the secretariat and ask the Prime Minister to establish a committee of ministers to strengthen the ties between the centre and the secretariat were based on the observation and remarks in that report. The secretariat is responsible for coordinating official languages within the public service.
We made no recommendations bearing solely on bringing the secretariat back under the aegis of the Privy Council, but we noted that some elements could be strengthened for it to function more effectively.