Well, I guess I do not want to go through this again and go through all of the points that led up to us feeling that the House, or certainly the committee, had lost confidence in the relationship between Members and the Conflict Commissioner.
I can just say that when we looked at the reasonable apprehension of bias and what gave rise to this, Mr. Steen is right,;we are talking about, when we are judging this standard, what an objective outside observer would feel looking from the outside in on the process. You have to ask yourself, would an objective person looking at this feel any concern that Mrs. Groenewegen might not get a fair shake? I think that is the question we are trying to ask ourselves.
When we looked at the Miltenberger report and saw that she had not been advised of the sections she was being complained under and therefore had no chance to respond to those sections, and when we see that the suggestion was made that there might be sanctions made against Mrs. Groenewegen by the House when in fact, really, there was found to be nothing in the report to sanction -- it was dismissed. Then we talk about the fact that we discover Ms. Roberts had knowledge from a discussion with Mr. Selleck for a couple of weeks before Mrs. Groenewegen ever had knowledge that there was an investigation and did not inform her, those are the kinds of things that concerned us and gave rise to this reasonable apprehension of bias.
We asked ourselves, if we are outside observers looking at this, do we have concerns that Mrs. Groenewegen may or may not get a fair shake? If we do, then there is a reasonable apprehension of bias and Ms. Roberts should have stepped aside and allowed another investigator to come in.
These things all happened before she tabled her report, the Rowe report, as it is now called. So the contents of the Rowe report are not irrelevant but they are not what the reasonable apprehension of bias turns on.
I do not know what more to say to Mr. Steen. I hope that I have answered his question as best I can but for further detail, it is laid out in the report and if he still objects, that is his prerogative. Thank you.