Thank you both for participating.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Fox, for going to Attawapiskat. I really appreciate that.
Ms. Kovacevic, thank you for being casual in emails. It's nice to see people who actually talk like human beings. I hope your superiors aren't upset that you were just as frank in your conversation. I think it's important.
The Liberals pitched to us that it always came up from the civil service, but the documents show us that this came from the top down. Bill Morneau gets an email from Craig Kielburger for $12 million and he gives his approval. It wasn't a mistake that it was on that list. It was overturned, finally, by Katie Telford. The PCO said they did not want this to go ahead, but Bill Morneau did want it to go ahead.
Just to wrap up here, because the Kielburgers were so tied to the Prime Minister, to Minister Chagger and to Minister Bill Morneau, I think the die was cast from the beginning.
They make lots of claims, those Kielburger boys. They are very slick. When they said that they could get 10,000 students, it must have sounded great, but I think due diligence would have asked the question, “Can they do this?” They claim they had Imagine Canada as a partner. Imagine Canada looked at this and said that it was not doable. They did not want to be part of it.
Even in June, Imagine Canada was still on the government documents as one of the partners, when they weren't. They said they could deliver for francophones. Only 7% of the people who signed up were francophone, and only 4% were from Quebec. That breached the Treasury Board guidelines.
I put it to you.... I am not blaming you. This was coming from Bill Morneau. This was coming from Minister Chagger's office, and everyone knew the Prime Minister was so tied to the Kielburgers that it put your department in an impossible situation. Decisions were made. If we had done due diligence, this scheme would never have gotten off the ground.