And he did so very succinctly. He said, Andy, it s to improve the quality of life of rural Canadians. The actions that you take, the efforts that you make, the directions that you give, must all address that question. That, in essence, is your mandate. Secondly in that mandate letter was a direction to work on a horizontal basis within government as opposed to the traditional vertical organization of government.
Government organizes itself fairly well on a vertical basis.
You have a Department of Transport. It deals with all the transportation issues. You have the Department of Health that deals with health issues. Industry deals with the industry issues. But the rural file doesn t clearly fit into a particular ministry.