Mr. Speaker, I sit with the member for Peterborough on the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons With Disabilities.
My question has to do with ministerial accountability. This is an issue I have raised before. As we all know, before HRDC was split into two ministries, there was a significant scandal in that ministry regarding the minister's inability to keep track of what was going on. The defence at that time was that the ministry was simply too large and it was impossible for one person to know everything that was happening there.
Since the ministry has been split, we have two separate ministries that are linked in many ways. They are not separate but connected in some ways. It raises an issue of ministerial accountability. Our system is based on the principle of ministerial accountability. Everything that happens in government, a minister is responsible for that.
I would like to hear comments from the parliamentary secretary. Would he agree that when we have programs under one minister but services being delivered by staff from another ministry, as will be the case between social development and human resources skills development, there may be gaps in the principal ministerial accountability?