Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I have a couple of points. One is that the new Federal Accountability Act states that you're accountable before Parliament. We understand there are situations where sometimes issues like Caledonia would take you away from coming here. But I would have thought that your officials would have been able to explain your absence when they were here last week, rather than saying, well, we think he's somewhere else. Take that as a note of caution, Mr. Wernick. The new Accountability Act requires you to be before Parliament.
One issue I want to talk about concerned the Auditor General pointing out that there are about 164 reports that you require from reserves and first nations, and many of them you don't even read. Yet when we ask for reports from your department before this committee, we don't get them, and your officials show up without even an opening statement.
Don't you think it's a bit of a double standard and unacceptable on both accounts that you ask for reports you don't read, then show up here without reports and don't respond to requests by this committee?