Technically speaking, under the directives as they read now, if the minister said to me, “I want you to investigate this”, I think the technical answer would have to be, “Okay, I'll do it”. At the same time, it seems to me that if this were an issue that I thought for some reason was not worthy of a full investigation, I would go back to the minister and ask him or her whether they had considered this, that, or the other thing, and also the alternative cost of it. I might suggest that if we do this, then we won't have the time or the resources to do what in my book, perhaps, is more important than that.
On November 22nd, 2006. See this statement in context.