Thank you, Madam Chair.
I think in seven minutes Mr. Moore asked one question. This is supposed to be the opportunity to ask questions. But I found it interesting that the only thing Mr. Moore was missing was John Baird's radio ad. That's the only thing he didn't play.
But here's the problem. In that radio ad his defence of his involvement in this whole affair is that it was going to be a billion-dollar boondoggle. Yet seven different federal departments under your government signed off on this, including Treasury Board, under the condition that the new council would just have to agree with it. So seven different departments either signed off on a boondoggle, or it isn't a boondoggle.
It's not about whether light rail was a good idea or a bad idea; this is about whether or not a minister inappropriately intervened in a municipal campaign. We've established to this point that the decision to make the funding contingent until after a municipal campaign was without precedent. I've asked for an example, and it has never been given; it doesn't exist. The minister intervened in this process, and the question is why. In fact, we even learned that it's not Treasury Board's role to get involved in these particular details.
On that line, I want to come back to this point. Mr. Baird received a copy of the contract based on the condition of confidentiality. Specifically, the letter that accompanied it stated:
…delivery and acceptance of this Agreement is based on the premise that no information contained in the Agreement, and no part of the Agreement will be disclosed to any person other than those who have the need to review the Agreement for the sole purpose of the internal review by Treasury Board…
So Mr. Wouters, did you approve of Minister Baird's decision to leak these pages of the contract to the media?