Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We have provided to the committee two examples of different invoice formats. The first, on the left side, was rendered by Retail Media to the official agents. The second, on the right, is a sample of what was shown to us by Elections Canada. As you can see, we provided a group invoice that had a number of ridings on the same invoice. It appears that our invoice was photocopied for each riding, showing only the information relevant to that riding.
When information regarding candidate invoices was made public in April, our lawyer wrote to Elections Canada to explain what we saw as confusion in the media. We've brought copies of that letter, in both official languages, which we have left with the committee.
As we previously indicated, the letter says, in part, “While the format of the invoice attached...was not the same as the original “group” invoice issued by RMI...the dollar amount...was the same as it appeared on the original invoice (plus an appropriate GST calculation...”. From the information provided to us, there appeared to be nothing inconsistent about these two invoices.
We hope these opening remarks have assisted the committee in understanding the details of the 2006 election media buys. That concludes our opening remarks. We'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.