Through you, Madam Chair, in terms of accuracy, there was not a letter that was received. A copy of the contract was requested through the officials in the transport ministry. The purpose that was stated was that the contract was required prior to Treasury Board finally reviewing and making a decision on the file.
We were surprised. I indicated earlier that we had done a lot of work and a lot of consultation throughout the entire process, ensuring that we understood. We were able to anticipate what the information requirements were going to be of both the federal and provincial governments in terms of their due diligence and processing of this file.
I think we did that very successfully. In all cases we met all of the information requirements of both governments. And this was a requirement that had never been raised throughout that time period.
It was unexpected. In our opinion, it was unusual that a copy of the contract would be requested. There were significant commercial proprietary interest issues involved with that. It took a fair amount of consultation with the consortium to gain their approval that we would release a copy of the contract.
In doing so, we covered the contract with a letter that was very explicit and clear about what our expectations were around confidentiality and the information that was in that contract.