To pick up on what you were saying, Mr. Richard, many financial officers must feel insulted, in this case. The number of consultants hired has been increasing since 2016. The number of public service employees has increased too, but most of the new hires are people in operational roles to manage the consultants. A huge machine is used to manage the consultants, even though the necessary expertise is already there. I must add that this dependence on outside expertise is partly the result of the cuts that the Conservatives made to the public service when they were in power.
I'll refer to the ArriveCAN case and the testimony that you recently received. If the people who spoke to you anonymously were listened to and their advice taken seriously, would it have made a difference, or would they have been bypassed? How could they have helped to avoid this situation?