Mr. Speaker, the short answer to my colleague's question is yes, it is important. However, an important aspect of that independence and getting that independent advice—aside from the person's qualifications and aside from whatever the person's background is, preferably less as opposed to more when we are talking about an independent officer of Parliament—is also the trust of parliamentarians on all sides of the House. That is someone to whom parliamentarians are going to be going. Parliamentarians are going to be, in some cases, providing the officers information about what they are doing or thinking, which they want to remain confidential. The parliamentarians want to know that they are getting objective advice that is not designed from the outset to protect a particular party. In this case that would be the governing party, and in most cases it would be the governing party because it controls that appointment; at least, that is how it is right now.
What is foreseen in this motion is an attempt to not just get the best-qualified candidate, although that is important, and to not just to assure candidates' independence in the sense of seeing what their background was and whether it is credible to think that they can act independently. The point of that is so that all members of this House, regardless of what side they sit on, can trust that officer with the information they are going to provide in order to ask the questions that they want to ask and also to trust that the information they are getting back is not designed or does not have information left out in order to protect the interests of any one particular party. Trust is the important thing. We saw that break down with the Meilleur nomination. All members could see that as a result of a lack of trust, that person was not going to be able to perform her duties.