I think that my point in putting forward the government's approach to the reappointments on a transitional basis...and many of them are reappointments of incumbents, that is, people who are in the position and they are extending their term. I'm not in a position to say that it is political influence. I think that is an incumbent whose term is being extended in order to have a selection process that will meet the requirements of the open, transparent, and merit-based process. It really is a transition in terms of getting to the full selection process that I outlined, which does take some time in terms of advertising, managing a selection process, vetting and considering candidates, and then of course providing advice to the minister. That does take a certain amount of time. As I mentioned, in a project planning sense we do have timelines and ideas about how long that takes, which is part of the information that we work with among the network of departments that support ministers.
There is a good understanding about the time frame that is involved. In order to ensure continuity, where terms may have been expiring in February, March, or June, the government did take an approach of reappointing or making some temporary appointments. I wouldn't take that as an end run on the process that has been announced. It is definitely a transitional approach.
There are some inherent timelines in terms of how the process works. Ministers are wanting to manage their vacancies and make sure that the organizations they are responsible for have the appointments and the people in place to carry out the mandate that they are accountable for. Within the system there are some timelines that are clearly in place. Our job in the public service is to back it up from those timelines and make sure that we can support their recommendations to the Governor in Council with a sound process.