Thank you. The first point I tried to raise as a point of order is that Parliament has agreed in fact to the right of committees to have a say in appointments. So we're not here debating whether or not we should spend time on it or whether or not it's in our purview to do so. That was a change in the last Parliament, for which all parties, I believe, expressed support.
This was seen as a move towards greater accountability, transparency. I think in fact members of the Conservative Party led the charge in getting this change in our entire parliamentary procedure. So for the very first time, in 2005, committees were granted the right to do that. In other words, we're now trying to find the way to actually execute our responsibilities in a proper, responsible way.
I have one suggestion, and it has been tried briefly by our committee. I don't think we had long enough to actually see how it would work.
There aren't many in the area of finance. The chair mentioned 30. Go back to the statistics that were given to us when we studied this last year, and of course with the new government there would be an increase, but between 2003 and 2008, the number of appointments was: 7 in 2003, 9 in 2004, 18 in 2005, 12 in 2006, 9 in 2007, and 11 in 2008. So we're not talking big numbers, and I hope we're not talking about not doing this job of reviewing appointments. We have to figure out a way to do it.
What this motion does is say let's get some criteria from the finance committee so that when appointments come along, we can look at them fairly, not based on our criteria that we make up, but something from the department to show us what kind of position they've got and why the person they're recommending should be considered for that. It actually takes it out of that realm, hopefully, of politics and partisanship and gives us a mechanism by which we can do our job.
When we discussed this in the past, there was clear support for it. In fact, I want to refer to John McKay, who I hope is going to support me this time, when he actually said:
If I understand the process, what's happening is that the government recommends criteria, they bring them to us for comment, and they then either accept or reject the criteria. But there's transparency. It's there, rather than our wondering how this person is appointed.
He goes on to suggest that as long as we don't have a veto power, which we don't, and we're not suggesting that in this, therefore he could support it.
There were Conservative members at that committee who gave it their absolute 100% support and blessing. I know, of course, that Yvon Loubier and the Bloc have always been supportive because it was consistent with their approach, except for their vote on the budget--whoops, I shouldn't have said that.
But I think it makes sense to have a process. If people don't like this process, then come up with something else, but we can't not do the work that Parliament has said we now have the right to do.