Do you think it would be helpful in circumstances of that sort? It's terrible. We just heard from Mr. Wouters that in his particular case it took over two years when he first became a deputy minister. It took him a significant amount of time to feel comfortable with his particular department. Ministers are politicians, and they can be somewhat finicky about things, whereas you would look towards the deputy ministers for some stability.
It's quite worrisome, because when I look here in your notes, you talk about evaluating deputies, and the first thing is self-evaluation of a deputy minister, so they evaluate themselves. That's a little worrisome.
Next you have the views of the responsible minister noted. We've seen in the past that there is a problem with that particular culture. A minister may not necessarily like, not so much the deputy minister, but the deputy minister's way of running things. Perhaps there is a threat there that a deputy minister feels, and maybe at that point there is a feeling that perhaps that deputy minister should be changed. I think that's the type of culture we're looking to change.
Do you think it would be helpful to have some sort of protocol in that set of circumstances, when a minister, at his or her whim or because of, as you've stated here, their views about a deputy minister, decides to have a deputy minister moved? Should there be a protocol that clearly spells out why that sort of move is taking place?