I just have a couple of questions to you, Mr. Lynch.
It seems to me, and I have considered this issue carefully, that both your office and the Office of the Auditor General start at the same premise, that the actual appointment is beyond the scope or mandate of the Office of the Auditor General. But when you talk about the specific recommendations, it seems to me when I read the recommendations, they're dealing with the process. One is “clarify its expectation regarding the level of Crown corporation board involvement”. That involves mainly the immigration board. There is a little bit of an issue there.
The second one is the insurance of “timely appointments".
Again, Mr. Lynch, if we have a situation like the immigration board, which has what I consider to be a high vacancy rate, there is a 17-month delay, it brings the whole process...and some could argue that the system is almost broke. But again, we're not going to get into the actual appointments.
The third one is the whole communication issue, and the Auditor General interviewed all these appointments and none of them were given sufficient notice. We had situations where people were showing up to meetings that had been discontinued. That is a process issue, and it is an issue that is of concern to this House. It's not an issue about which you can say there is no mandate for the Auditor General or that it is of no concern to Parliament. I think it is. These are very much process issues. They're not getting involved.... They're not dealing with the actual appointment of the individual; they're dealing with a process issue. The Auditor General has made certain recommendations, which quite frankly I agree with. I would have thought that the Office of the Privy Council could have given us some response or given the Office of the Auditor General some response to that, especially the communications issue.
Let's be frank here. If you were not reappointed and you get all dressed up, you fly to Toronto, you go to a board meeting and the chair comes over and taps you on the shoulder and says, your appointment wasn't renewed a month ago, don't you think that as the Clerk of the Privy Council that brings the whole system into disrepute? It shouldn't be tolerated by either your office, your political masters, or by Parliament. Am I wrong on that?