Thank you so much, Mr. Dion. It's always a pleasure to have you come to our committee. You don't come often enough, I think.
I want to congratulate you. I think your reports are always extremely diligent. I don't always agree with them, but I find them very fascinating and I reflect on them.
I want to ask you about the Morneau report because to me it really shows a staggering level of insider access. It answered many of the questions we were trying to figure out at our committee.
In sworn testimony to the committee, the Kielburger brothers stated that one of the reasons they opted not to register to lobby was because it was unusual for them to be spending any significant time with the federal government. However, in your report you state that Mr. Morneau's office:
...had an unusually high degree of involvement in...files relating to WE.... There were frequent communications between members of Mr. Morneau's ministerial staff and WE representatives.
...Mr. Morneau gave WE preferential treatment by permitting his ministerial staff to disproportionately assist it when it sought federal funding. I believe this unfettered access to the Office of the Minister of Finance was based on the identity of WE's representative, Mr. Craig Kielburger.
Would you say that this—to me, unprecedented—access to the finance minister's office created the conflict of interest for Mr. Morneau and certainly helped exacerbate the the WE scandal?