Well, we all agreed with the concept of DMs being accountable before Parliament, but to me, there's a big hole. It goes back to the sponsorship issue, where the deputy minister said “I wasn't in the loop, so don't hold me accountable”, and he was retired. The minister said, “Hey, I was only responsible for policy. I had nothing to do with administration.” There was a huge hole in the middle such that we couldn't hold anybody up and say “It happened because you allowed it to happen”. Therefore, we came up with this accounting officer model. It has been in the U.K. for I think 125 years, and yet we haven't been able to get it implemented here.
After a deputy moves on.... And I recognize Mr. Desautels' comment that they need to be in the job long enough to accept some responsibility, rather than just flowing through and saying, “Well, it happened either before or after...”. But anyway, given some longevity, surely there must be some mechanism, because we can't hold ministers accountable; we have to hold deputy ministers accountable after they go on, if we find out subsequently that under their watch things were not running as well as we had thought they were. Do you agree with that?
I'll get an answer before we close off?