Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly that suggestion has been presented to us on a number of occasions. We have not decided to put that into the terms of reference for the request for proposals. It will be interesting to see what the consortium says with respect to that. At this stage, we would say that t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Very simply, it's to provide advice to the commission with respect to the narrow mandate of carrying off two national debates, in official languages, and engaging with us and assisting in the appropriate awareness of the debates, the publicity in and around them, the citizen enga

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We haven't come to any fast rules on that. I would say consensus, but the seven-person advisory board is adviser to me, the commissioner, so I would take responsibility for how that advice is received and acted upon.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I guess if they were to be overturned, they would be overturned by me, overturning myself. They are an advisory board. The input comes in. Of course, if you do that very often with an advisory board, it somewhat tarnishes the kind of advice you get, so we would work in a way to t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I missed the question.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The advisory board helps us with advice on the crafting of the request for proposals and the terms that we put into that. When we evaluate the responses to that, we'll use two steps. We'll use an expert procurement group from within the Government of Canada that has expertise in

Procedure and House Affairs committee  We've left that open. We have said that a bid for the French debates and a separate bid for the English debates would be fine. We've also invited a consortium to consider putting the two together.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I suppose there are three or four reasons. The simplest reason sounds a little hokey, but it's simply because I was asked. I've spent my life as a tenured university professor, one of the most delightful positions possible in our society, and have been asked frequently to chair

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If we came to the conclusion that this was happening there would be a discussion with the successful consortium to seek what remedy was available. Within our mandate we do not have enforcement powers to step in and say thou shall not do that. In the U.S., the commission on debat

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In fairness, we haven't totally sorted out copyright. We're seeking legal advice on that. My own view offhand, without having considered it, is that the copyright would remain with the consortium that produces and disseminates the debate. Any breach of copyright infractions would

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, and thank you once again for the contribution to the Rideau Hall Foundation, Scott.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They were chosen by us, with my ultimate responsibility, taking advice from the secretariat, and we were guided by the references that are in our mandate. I can refer that to you, if you wish. It does indicate that one should select some members of the advisory board who have had

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Correct.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, that was entirely handled by ourselves.