Mr. Speaker, it is not like that at all. In the case of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, I was advised at the beginning of the month, as I said before, and I made my decision at that time; if I had decided to ask for his resignation, I should have done so then and there. The other ministers gave me the information personally, on the weekend.
When I looked at the guidelines I gave all ministers in November when they accepted their appointment, as I explained in my speech earlier this afternoon, a very clear distinction was made. Communications with judges are forbidden; the guideline was quite clear in this respect. In the case of quasi-judicial bodies which themselves very often invite the views of all kinds of people before reaching a decision, we had a different rule. I asked the ethics counsellor to look into this and make some suggestions. I hope we will also receive some suggestions from members of the Opposition. I heard about the situation regarding the other ministers after I asked them to check their files.