That's if you can call a Liberal delegate "normal". If they pay the maximum amount in the donation they get to go to Laurier Club events, and of course the minister herself would have been there. She would be a big draw as the Minister of Finance, but we don't know how many of those events they had during the convention because Laurier events are secret. We do not know how many Laurier events were conducted at the actual convention itself.
For some reason, the Prime Minister and the president of the Liberal Party did not share the details of the Laurier Club agenda with me.
Going back to the issue of the bill and ministerial accountability, it's so key. As the Prime Minister's letter on her mandate—and the Prime Minister made a big deal out of making these mandate letters public. These never used to be public. Prime Ministers have always given mandate letters. This Prime Minister, in the context of supposedly open, transparent and accountable government, said this. This letter says that the ministers have to familiarize themselves with “Open and Accountable Government”, which sets out the core principles and standards of conduct expected of them while they are in office.
When you read that interesting document—it was issued in 2015—it says that ministers have to be available and open and attend Parliament and respond to questions. Now, it doesn't say “answer” questions, because they knew ahead of time that answering questions was not something they wanted to do; they just wanted to respond to questions, which is different. I could get into the Webster dictionary difference on that, but I think most people who are watching and listening probably understand the difference between those. That's why we're into this, and that's why these documents are very important—particularly this document, from Treasury Board, which is an additional guide to the “Open and Accountable Government” issued by the Prime Minister in 2015, for which ministers are supposed to be responsible.
These are the Treasury Board guidelines for ministerial accountability, and where I left off was on page 10. I'll leave out and not finish the last sentence of the paragraph I was on....
Okay, by popular demand, I will repeat the last sentence before I go on to the next section of page 10.
The last sentence says, “Ministers remain individually”—