Thank you, Chair.
Thank you all for coming today. We appreciate it.
For the benefit of our international auditors, I want to point out that I'm a member of the third party and there aren't many benefits to not being the government, but one of them on this committee is that I'm never on the defensive because I'm never being audited. I never have to defend anything, and I always have the greatest respect for particularly the government members, who are caught in a really tough spot. They have to defend their government because they're part of a team—and that's expected of all of us—but also as a member of this committee, where we try to stay as much as we can above the partisan fray.
I make reference to my earlier comment, which calls on government members—in this case it's the former government members who are sort of defending, if you will, or have that aspect—to be willing to legitimately criticize their own government when they've done something wrong, or not as well as they should, or wasted taxpayer money. That higher calling calls upon them, while they know they have staff and others right behind them, freaking out in some cases, as they go forward and say “This is wrong and we need to ensure that it doesn't happen again.”
The reason I'm saying all of this to our guests is that this is a lot to ask of a member, and I've been on this committee for a very long time and I know how difficult it is. The other part of the equation is that someone like me, who never has to play that role, I think has an obligation when there's something close to good that the government has done, to be willing to say so. As much as colleagues will know, I just love ripping into these things. I see a colleague joining me who has been around for a long time. He knows how much I love to rip into these things when we have massive waste, and get right into it.
I have to tell you—