Public Accounts committee  No. The intervention, as you say, from the minister's office was strictly to ascertain that the client minister was willing to move. For the rest, we didn't get involved in anything else than that.

Public Accounts committee  Based on what you're saying, it must have been the deputy minister's--Mrs. Cochrane--and Mr. Goodale's preoccupation, because they were the officers, or they were the responsible people politically and officially for the Minister of Public Works. So once Drouin put in his request it went back to Public Works, and Mr.

Public Accounts committee  It wasn't the formal processes as such, because if you look at the long spreadsheet that we have at the beginning of our file, it says in the first box on the left that there's a period for discussion. That's when we intervened. We never intervened in any of the action as far as the bid request or the letter of interest were concerned.

Public Accounts committee  I'm telling you what we did. I read this file being totally neutral, because I didn't remember anything, and I still don't about this file. When I read this file, it's obvious that one of the civil servants had some kind of trouble answering questions that were being asked. I guess he got emotional about the file.

Public Accounts committee  I can give you part of the answer. Mr. Arès even said in one of his memoranda that they were never told to stop the project. He says that very clearly in one of his memoranda.

Public Accounts committee  What surprises me in all this is that when Mrs. Beal appeared in front of the committee, all of the civil servants took notes. They normally have a big book and they take handwritten notes of everything important that goes on in the meetings. So if you had asked Mrs. Beal, “Why did we ask for a moment d'attente, for a hold, a temporary hold to get answers to that question, probably she would have told you why.

Public Accounts committee  I'm sorry, but we didn't have that kind of relationship with the bureaucrats. Our relationship with the bureaucrats was always polite and very conventional, and we never told the bureaucrats what to do.

Public Accounts committee  There again, the hold came much earlier in the process than what you seem to be referring to. The hold came sometime in 2000, and we wanted to have some questions answered. But as I say, there seems to be some kind of...I wouldn't say confusion, but reality problem. The minister who was responsible for Canada Economic Development when the moving project started wasn't the same minister as the one who asked Public Works to see if they could revise or review their decision.

Public Accounts committee  I disagree with you. I never interrupted the process.

Public Accounts committee  You have other testimony from people who appeared in front of the committee whereby they say that the process continued and everything was completed on schedule, so I can't agree with you on that.

Public Accounts committee  I agree with you.

Public Accounts committee  As I told you, I have no direct recollection of this file except based on the correspondence or other testimonies that I have read. We have never stopped this file. We probably asked for what you call in French un moment d'attente, answer our question: Is the minister's office in agreement with the move or not?

Public Accounts committee  I already made my comment to that, but I'll make it again.

Public Accounts committee  When the deputy minister sent the memorandum to Mr. Gagliano informing him that the file was going ahead, this is an additional support that we didn't stop the thing. The file kept going. We didn't stop it, except we were waiting for answers. And as I said previously, probably the questions we asked were, “Is the minister's office aware of this?

Public Accounts committee  The only conclusion I can come to, based on what I've read and what you're stating also, is maybe Mr. Arès was instructed by Mrs. Beal or her assistants about this information. As far as I'm concerned, I never met with Mr. Arès and I never had any meetings with Mr. Arès, unless Mr.