Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said at the outset, this is not an area of scholarship for me. I have not published on the Senate. Indeed, I don't think you will find anything under my signature that would address the kinds of questions you're raising. That being said, I'm quite familiar with the concerns you express, because those figure prominently in all of the scholarship that I was reading in preparation for my work as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Senate reference.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No. That work that we did.... This is a group of McGill professors who are engaged in this effort and the work that we did had to do with judicial structures, the administration of justice issues, and also corruption aspects or corruption controls that one might imagine for a federation like Russia.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think this is again a question that goes to process and a question that goes to the qualifications of individuals who will be appointed as senators rather than the qualifications of members, but let me try to answer it that way. The mandate of.... I'm sorry if I'm making you unhappy with my answers.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Very briefly, my graduate studies at Harvard were a little over 30 years ago. The focus in constitutional matters, as you can imagine back then, was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This was the mid-1980s, and everybody with an interest in public law was particularly focused on human rights and constitutional guarantees for civil liberties.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What I want to say on this is that you're interviewing me, obviously, but there's a large committee that is addressing this. We have three committees, as you know, provincially constituted committees of five, and there's a very broad range of expertise and competence in this very fine group of people.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Frankly, what happens after the fact is not something that the board can control. I'm not sure I can answer that particular question. There are extraordinary Canadians from all walks of life who have applied for this, I can assure you. What we're trying to do, based on our own qualifications, is to make an appropriate assessment of the ways in which the individuals who have applied for this position meet the criteria that have been provided to us, the merit-based assessment criteria we must work with in making recommendations to the Prime Minister.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Since there is a lot of work to be done, I consider it essential to be efficient in evaluating files, and reading resumés and letters of recommendation. There is also the ability to spot certain key elements of a person's life in these documents. That is not always easy to do with documents filed before this kind of board to help assess candidate applications.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, I think that goes primarily to the criteria that we were asked to use and not necessarily to my own qualification. I'm going to refer you back to the annex that was provided by the minister on qualifications and merit-based assessment criteria. I think they're well defined and they're not all focused on letters after people's names.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I don't think I want to answer detailed questions about what should be done for reasons that I outlined in my previous response to you. I think that assessment needs to take place once we're done with this particular transitional phase, and it's too early to address this. I think it would be preferable given our terms of reference if the different interlocutors were addressed in the appropriate sequence.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you. I think, again, those questions go to the process that will be reported on in the document I've just mentioned rather than to my qualifications. I can refer back to what was said by our chair, Huguette Labelle, in her testimony before your committee, that the process was a very open one.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I am not sure I understand your question. What do you mean by “personal background”?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is a very difficult question. I am not sure I can give you an intelligent answer. I am now part of an university environment associated with higher education. That is basically my professional life. That said, it may be useful to know that in my family, my generation is the first to have a university education.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think I'll confine myself to saying it's probably premature for me to answer that question. The process is still ongoing. There will be a report to the Prime Minister under our terms of reference that will assess the process and identify some of the possible improvements, but I don't think I can identify them now.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That is my understanding. I think that is explicit in our terms of reference under article 13(3). The report must be made public under those terms of reference.