Thank you very much, colleague, for your question.
I'd respond initially by saying the policy that is in place, of course, is governed by a number of pieces of legislation, particularly the Financial Administration Act of Canada, which indicates the way in which crown corporations should conduct themselves, and I'd refer the colleagues to that way of doing things.
I strongly believe the arm's-length policy that is in place should be maintained, but I would add--and this is something I had learned in the Quebec National Assembly when I was a minister in Mr. Bourassa's cabinet, and particularly with Quebec today--on a yearly basis we would deliver mandate letters to the chairman of the board so that the chairman of the board would be in a position to not only receive this mandate letter, but at the same time be able to execute it on the short-, medium-, and long-term plan that as a government we would want them to do. Let's be clear on some examples here.
If we strenuously, as a government and also as parliamentarians, determine that vis-à-vis such and such a crown corporation we should be telling them to go in one direction and that is the direction the government supports, I would be sending a letter to the chair of that crown corporation indicating to him or her that it is the direction I would want them to take under my watch, under my mandate. It would be up to the chair of that commission to be able to make sure that is fulfilled within the mandate of their executive officers in that crown corporation.
The second thing--and I've asked my officials to look at this--is the possibility of making sure that our crown corporations become centres of excellence, that we look at our crown corporations and become extremely proud of them in the way that Canadians and of course the employees who work in these crown corporations can view them. I think we have excellent crown corporations. We have excellent people who work there, and I think we can strengthen them and modernize the way we do things with them.
That is essentially the gist of how I would respond this morning on that.