Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, thank you to the witness for reappearing at this committee. I can assure the witness today that I'm going to ask questions and make commentary, and you're free to answer to the extent that I'm satisfied with the answer. I will not tolerate the chair intervening on that basis. I want you to feel comfortable with that.
I also want to apologize for some of the things that have been rather unusual, going back to the last meeting and in fact occurring at this meeting, to the extent that you were compelled to be sworn in. All witnesses at the committee have an obligation at law to speak the truth and the whole truth. So I apologize for the political charade that we appear to be going through.
Furthermore, the chair of this committee actually went public with comments to the media that you would be threatened with contempt. And today, as we've seen, he's actually denying your ability to give answers that at no point today have actually been interrupted by any of the members of this committee, except for one of my colleagues across the way. And the general tone of these questions has been heavily politicized. I might remark and add that the same level of courage, if you will, was not demonstrated when the minister was here, who's the one who's really supposed to be answering these questions and did so at previous meetings with respect to these issues. This kind of intimidation, sir, I apologize for, on behalf of all parliamentarians.
I appreciate, furthermore, the willingness of this government to have ministers and their staff come before this committee and answer questions in what we thought--and hoped for--would be in non-politicized way. I think it's fair to say that had we had this sort of transparency in years gone by, Canadians wouldn't be asking where the heck their $39 million went in the Liberal Adscam. Unfortunately, that wasn't available to--
I'm timing it, Mr. Chair. It's okay. I have a sense of where I'm going with this....
Well, it's important, because the clock has been stopped when the witness has been consulting his lawyer, another unusual event, I think.
I have a series of questions here for you. You acknowledged at the last meeting and today that you made a mistake. Did you make a mistake?