Public Accounts committee  Normally, it wouldn't be the Privy Council Office playing a role in trying to seek funding for the organizations or facilitating that. I'd say the PCO role, particularly in the plans role—the deputy secretary, plans—would be on major issues confronting the country. It would be common practice to bring together external players—it could be from the business community or the academic community—to have a discussion with senior officials around those issues.

Public Accounts committee  It would have been the Privy Council Office that set up the meeting.

Public Accounts committee  I would have been invited to the meeting as the deputy minister of Canadian heritage, which has, among other things, a mandate for pluralism. What I remember about the meeting is that it was a meeting with some academics on a project on pluralism. I probably would have gone back to the department and asked the department if we had eyes on this, because there are many pluralism projects.

Public Accounts committee  I have no recollection of anything like that. What I recall is an academic project on pluralism, not unlike the ones we did with the Global Centre for Pluralism in Canada. The meeting was seven years ago. I think I would have remembered if there were something about China, but I don't have any recollection of anything like that.