Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here.
Mr. Ricard, Mr. Hayes, Ms. Thomas and, especially, Mr. Leswick, thank you very much for accepting our last minute invitation.
I will use a bit of my time to ensure that the record clearly shows the government members' position. We all agree with the necessity of an independent mechanism to determine the budget of agents of Parliament. We hold strongly to that.
That said, I thank the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons for beginning the review process of the funding mechanism for those agents and for having thought about our next steps. This is a long-term undertaking, which is not done as quickly as we wish, but we recognize that the leader is also responsible for moving forward all the bills that come before the House.
To the arguments Mr. Christopherson—whom I respect tremendously and admire deeply as a committee colleague—presented related to the rejection of the Office of the Auditor General's request, I would add a fourth reason, which I think is a good one based on what Mr. Leswick just told us. Taking into account the government's financial capacity, it was not possible to provide the office with the additional funding it wanted. That had nothing to do with a desire for vengeance or a fear of what the office could do. Simply put, it was a matter of financial capacity.
Mr. Leswick, do you want to comment?