From my standpoint, when the government was elected and Mr. Thompson became the minister, I was asked to be the executive responsible for actually putting this forward. There have been people in the past who have said in the media that I was not in support of an ombudsman and VAC had put an executive in charge to find a way not to do this.
I would just like to go on the record to say that I've been fully supportive of the ombudsman, and my colleagues have been. I can't speculate on what may have happened years ago or on past history, but I can tell you that certainly in recent times, and with the mandate I have and my responsibilities before coming to this job, we moved forward to develop the ombudsman's office. I know that I testified twice before this committee as the project manager for that. I just wanted to put that on the record, if I could.