Yes, the good old days, actually, weren't all that great. At least some of them that I lived through weren't all that great.
Having said that, I would go on more substantively to say that it's important to focus on the kinds of problems that you see in the system today, and above all, what you as a committee can do that would be most conducive to creating a culture of responsible conduct, a culture of concern for the public. You can make a case that people had greater concern for the public then or that they have greater concern for the public now. The important thing is, what can you as a committee do to increase sensitivity to public needs and to improve the functioning of government? If you can focus on what it is that's possible to do, I mean really in the realm of the possible, that's the place to go.
The thing to avoid is this. When Mr. Mulroney was Prime Minister, at one time, he started using the phrase “error-free government”. He was still new. When he'd been around a little longer, I think he understood there is no such thing. Attempts to achieve error-free government merely get you bureaucratic government without necessarily making government any less prone to errors at all.
Look, we've had five or six years of re-bureaucratization, and this morning the Auditor General brings in a report that does not have less content in it than it would have six years ago. So there are certain things that are done that don't get you results and there are certain things that you as a committee do that probably could get results. That is the toughest job you have before you, I think, to identify what the things are that you as a committee do that would not proliferate rules but would be conducive to the emergence of a culture.