I am in fact splitting my time with the member for Kelowna.
This audit first came to light on June 14. Although it was an interim result, it was obviously very explosive. The deputy minister herself wrote to the minister some weeks later saying that since the interim audit results were released in June there had been very vigorous efforts to come up with some kind of a plan to deal with this. That has been confirmed by the deputy minister herself.
On June 14 the time bomb started ticking. By July 14, a month later, there was a proposed action plan. On July 19 briefing notes were e-mailed to all HRDC managers. On July 27 and 28 there was a two day meeting of 40 top HRDC officials.
The present minister was sworn in on August 3. On August 9 she asked for a briefing but she said, and I commend her for this, “I do not want to know all about the nuts and bolts of this department. I want to know what the hot issues are, what balls are in the air, what the key difficulties are”. That was on August 9. She claims in spite of that she knew nothing about this audit until November 17. She waited for two further months before she breathed a word of this to the public and did so only two days after we put in an access request for this audit.
This circumstance alone demonstrates to members of parliament and to the public that there is a culture and attitude of cover-up, of hiding, of denying problems and of whitewashing that cannot be allowed to stand. I urge members of the House for the sake of the public and for the sake of the integrity of our system and our parliament to support this motion to establish an independent inquiry into this matter.