Mr. Chair, competitions exist because sometimes it's very hard to judge, understand or grasp the complexity of the situation.
Historical competitions are organized whenever something symbolic is involved, as is the case of this monument, but that can also be true of the Dome of Florence Cathedral, the Parthenon and major civic monuments and buildings, as I said. The Parliament of Canada was designed by competition. Competitions were systematic practices in England in the 19t century.
Consequently, competitions are organized every time a situation is complex, involves many issues or elicits contradictory expectations. In the present instance, the veterans must obviously be considered, but also Canadians as a whole and thus, as it were, everyone. As I said, competitions are also organized when budgets are an issue and, in some instances, as a result of technical and siting issues.
So it's all very complex, and opinion poll procedures simply can't provide a clear picture of those complexities by gathering a few “likes”. You could almost say that, in the history of dictatorships, leaders organized competitions to prevent situations from escalating. There are some quite surprising stories of that point of view. It's as though the competition process was the only way to—