Public Accounts committee  I don't believe we disrupted anything. I don't believe we told anyone to stop the process. As a matter of fact, if you read some of the prior testimony--and you've been sitting on this committee for a while--you can see that nothing was disturbed. The civil servants kept on going.

Public Accounts committee  What's the date of that memorandum?

Public Accounts committee  I do not know.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I did look at them and I referred to them at the very beginning of my testimony. As I have already stated, I have no recollection of the details of this specific file. I became familiar with this file in going through the correspondence and the content of the binder which was sent to me.

Public Accounts committee  Well, as I said previously in my testimony in French, first of all I don't believe I know Mr. Arès. I don't believe I've ever met Mr. Arès. All the meetings we had were information meetings, and all the meetings we had with the officers of the department were held in the headquarters in Hull.

Public Accounts committee  You identified him, it was Mr. Couture.

Public Accounts committee  Based on my recollection, I perhaps met with the regional director once or twice, and always in the presence of Mr. Nurse or Ms. Beal. As I said earlier, there is a hierarchy, and we respected it. We consistently, and without exception acted through Mr. Nurse, the Assistant Deputy Minister, or Ms.

Public Accounts committee  There was never any review, to my knowledge at least, on any particular lease. We made a request for information, and based on the information we received, we were able to determine which region was affected, and if there would be an impact on members or the minister responsible.

Public Accounts committee  Meetings where decisions were made, no. We did not attend meetings where—

Public Accounts committee  We attended meetings with people from the real estate branch, which in the beginning came Mr. Nurse and then Ms. Beal. As I said earlier, we were not part of the decision-making process. We asked questions to obtain information with a view of doing follow-ups, and to determine whether or not the minister was in favour of a move.

Public Accounts committee  No, nor did we provide information on any other file because if I recall correctly, there was no meeting scheduled with my successor when we left.

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  I simply want to add that several of Mr. Arès's e-mails can be found in the internal correspondence. These e-mails seem to suggest that either I, or the minister's office gave him instructions. To my recollection, I do not know Mr. Arès and I have never met him. Our meetings were always held in our offices in Hull, in the presence of Ms.

Public Accounts committee  I started working for Mr. Gagliano as a senior policy advisor; at around the end of 1999 or the beginning of 2000, when the minister's chief of staff applied for a job with the public service, I became Mr. Gagliano's chief of staff. I served as chief of staff for approximately two years and three to four months.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, as I stated, these subjects were previously discussed with the then deputy minister and the assistant deputy minister. As Mr. Gagliano, who was the minister responsible for the region of Quebec at the time told you,the main objective was political because we had to understand what was going on.