May I respond?
Mr. Fitzpatrick, in your euphemism, the Latin that you can get away with in Parliament is stercus taurinus mentem confundet, if that's of any help to you next time you want to express your sentiment. But leaving that aside, I feel in my gut that the Comptroller General is the official in the Treasury Board with whom this committee should have a primary relationship.
The Federal Accountability Act gives the Secretary of the Treasury Board a position of offering what one might call rulings— they're not quite that—to deputy ministers when there's a dispute on an issue. It's not fair to say that the current Comptroller General agreed to that. I don't think he was even there at the time this happened. But I do think the committee has to make sure that the Treasury Board fulfills its duties.
On the issue that you're looking at in the firearms, you're legitimately entitled to ask a question of why wasn't the Treasury Board's view observed. The answer might be that only one official in the Treasury Board expressed a strong opinion on it. I'm not sure, but I do think this committee is entitled to say, we want an official of the Treasury Board to be the one who is responsible for Treasury Board oversight of accounting officers. I think the appropriate one is the comptroller of the treasury, and then that would be the one to whom your questions would be addressed. One simply hopes the Comptroller General is not on a seagull mission.