Information & Ethics committee  I don't know what happened there, but inherently, going to the general public takes a longer time. Denise, maybe you can explain why.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. It's the number.

Information & Ethics committee  Do you know, Denise?

Information & Ethics committee  I think the staffing issue will continue to be an ongoing problem. I've come to accept that, but I think we have an office that's a lot stronger now than when we came in, and my hope is that we will have reached a certain level of stability. My hope is that it will slow down a bit, but all I can do is deal with what I have.

Information & Ethics committee  No. Actually, they do two main things. Each compliance officer has a certain number of individuals assigned to them as the people they look after. They spend quite a bit of time with some of those people, trying to figure out what to do about holdings that they may have to put in trust or whether they can take part in certain outside activities.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I think they have. But I'll let Denise Benoit respond to that. We have a few more responsibilities than the previous office did.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. For example, we've never had to resort to a court order, which we can do if we need to. It has been fine.

Information & Ethics committee  Not at all. No, there's nothing like that.

Information & Ethics committee  Probably. I really don't know if there has ever been an investigation in the Senate. Was there one investigation in the Senate, or has there never been one...? I haven't observed experience with the Senate's investigations.

Information & Ethics committee  All we can do is the best we can do--make it as nice a place to work as we can. It's actually quite an interesting place to work, but we have to keep struggling. I recognize that it's going to be a constant problem. We have to address mechanisms for continuing to staff.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right. We're unusual in that sense.

Information & Ethics committee  We're part of Parliament, actually.

Information & Ethics committee  People would be working less overtime and pulling their hair out a little bit less. That's one thing. It has really been quite a stressful last six months, because there were two sets of reports that surrounded the fact that there was an election, not only on the MP level but on the ministerial staff level.

Information & Ethics committee  I can't comment on that.