Public Accounts committee  First of all, I have some sympathy with going after ministers, because I think that in the partisan aspects of parliamentary politics, which are a crucial part of democracy, politicians normally like to go after big game rather than little game--tigers rather than rabbits. So they want to go after the ministers rather than the public servants, the deputy ministers.

Public Accounts committee  You can also draw more blood if you succeed. That's on the first hand. That's a natural tendency. On the other hand, as I have tried to emphasize, there's a statutory framework that gives responsibility to deputy ministers. Now we call them accounting officers because of their managerial responsibilities.

Public Accounts committee  With the sponsorship issue, a huge number of the problems that came up were payments that were made under contracts when they shouldn't have been. That is clearly the statutory responsibility of the deputy minister, and the only thing you can say about that is that the deputy minister failed in his duty.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. As far as I know, the protocol, which is now on the PCO website, was not put there until late last Friday, and I did not have it to comment on until then. My great regret in doing the protocol is that I did not have the cooperation of Treasury Board, and it would be a better product if I had.

Public Accounts committee  The recommendation of the Gomery commission report that this committee should have more resources should be read in the context of his general recommendation that all committees should have more resources. Just to make a point on that, the Gomery commission did not recommend a parliamentary budget officer or parliamentary budget office.

Public Accounts committee  In line with my previous comment, I hope your bird's-eye view is not a gull's-eye view.

Public Accounts committee  May I respond? Mr. Fitzpatrick, in your euphemism, the Latin that you can get away with in Parliament is stercus taurinus mentem confundet, if that's of any help to you next time you want to express your sentiment. But leaving that aside, I feel in my gut that the Comptroller General is the official in the Treasury Board with whom this committee should have a primary relationship.

Public Accounts committee  I'll offer you several remarks. First of all, every report produced by the Auditor General is available to the government beforehand and every word in it is looked at by the government. The expectation is that by the time the Auditor General produces a report in public, there are no problems of questions of fact in it.

Public Accounts committee  There is one other possible way of doing it, and that would be to have the steering committee meet after some work by the staff, on the lines of questioning the committee might want to take. Then the steering committee would decide how those questions are going to be divided among members and try to encourage members of their parties to adhere to that.

Public Accounts committee  We all suffer from that problem.

Public Accounts committee  I'll give a very short answer on it. There are two options. I think there's a third that would probably be rejected, which is that you designate lead questioners for each area; give them, say, 30 minutes each; and then go on from there. Of the two options, one is to meet in camera, because you can have a much more relaxed investigation without the attention of the press and the public.

Public Accounts committee  I'll lead off on this. Jonathan might want to follow. In the narrative of the Gomery commission, not the recommendations, you'll find it stated that there are three fundamental principles of our parliamentary democracy: one is supremacy of Parliament, two is ministerial responsibility, and three is rule of law.

Public Accounts committee  I'll make a couple of comments. Looking back over the history of the committee from the beginning in 1867, the lure, the trap, in which the committee can fall, is scandal hunting at the expense of worrying about the system and improving it. I like the balance of an opposition chair and the committee membership in proportion to the representation in the House, because it gives the chair an incentive, as an opposition member, to go after things, and that's balanced by government members.

Public Accounts committee  I could make a suggestion on that. I think Indian and Northern Affairs Canada has a problem, but the secretary of the Treasury Board has been in for about two and a half years on average over the last 30 years, and the same is true for the Clerk of the Privy Council. We have real problems, I think, at that level, and that's why I used that not very complimentary expression of a seagull-mission deputy minister.

Public Accounts committee  There are many theories about parliamentary government that are confounded by the reality, but we still believe the theories--such as ministerial responsibility, rule of law, or the two of them.