Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Minister, and good morning to the other witnesses, guests, we have this morning. It's a pleasure to see you.
It's important for us, obviously, to have the opportunity to find out what your plans are with respect to the changes that seem like they're quite substantial to the procurement process and the way government does business in purchasing goods and services, and, as you rightly point out, managing real estate on behalf of Canadians.
I want to ask you bigger questions about that, but I do want to begin by raising an issue that occurred sometime back in the summer. There were media reports about a contract that was initiated under the previous government last November, awarded to A.T. Kearney Inc., and when that contract was finally completed, the costs had gone up, according to media reports, almost fourteen times what the contract was worth when it was awarded. It had gone up to $24 million in nine months. Now, that's a lot of money.
We had the President of the Treasury Board in here a few weeks back, and I was asking him about the $2 million that was cut for the entire funding for the court challenges program, which is an important program on behalf of people who want to secure their rights within Canada under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That $2 million was completely cut, but $24 million was awarded to A.T. Kearney in nine months.
I guess more troubling were media reports that a person named Mr. Rotor, who was identified as a special adviser to you, Mr. Marshall, had been with a colleague, Mr. Tipple, in London, studying public-private partnerships and the British experience with these. There were meetings with British officials that were cancelled or postponed, and ultimately Canada's Deputy High Commissioner felt compelled to send letters of apology to those parties who had meetings with these folks that never took place.
At the time, Mr. Minister, you had said that you would get a report on this--the media reported that. I'm wondering if you did a get a report on the specific visit that I was describing and also the overall report with this contractor. Can you share that with our committee?