Mr. Patrick Mulley:

Indeed, we do. We would absolutely endorse the present Minister's position in that he is very accommodating with us. We have fairly good access to him.

We also got a commitment from the Minister that the review period of the VFM, which is due to take place next year, be put further out. We are looking forward to being brought in on those consultations as to the review of that because, initially, we were not brought in on the VFM in any significant way.

In the past few months, we were certainly consulted on the content of the White Paper. Our views were taken on board. They were expressed in the White Paper. We would not be 100% with a lot of the wording of what transpired to be the White Paper because the word "review", which is mentioned approximately 20 times, is undefined. Once that is the case, succeeding Governments could have a different view and intent on the White Paper from that of the present Minister. We would be fearful of that and that it would not be followed through to that extent. We would certainly say that we, through the offices of Deputy Stanton here, and in bringing us in in the first instance, have definitely opened up channels with the Department, with the Chief of Staff and with others in the Department of Defence.