Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Jaffer, the difficulty with our situation today is that you came before and gave testimony, and what has been consistent in the testimony we've heard subsequent is that almost everybody has had at least one thing to contradict the testimony you've provided.
In every case, or in many cases, there's been individual testimony that's either overtly saying something different from you or else saying it's not quite the way you clarified it or that you stated things before our committee. The difficulty is that when we find out on the little things that there are inconsistencies in the testimony, it's tough to believe any of the testimony. I guess that's the difficulty for committee members.
I don't want to get really frustrated at the moment because I think there are some things we need to go through. We need to go through the testimony you provided and the testimony that we heard from subsequent people. I don't know if there's any clarification that you can bring to this committee before we move forward and finish the hearings.
We understand there's no money that came from the government and went to you or to other members. We have no evidence of that. That's the first point. I think it's clear.
But there are questions with regard to the testimony you provided our committee. You have a responsibility to give us the truth, the whole truth, and I believe nothing but the truth. The testimony you've provided up until this point I believe has broken the trust with your former colleagues and has broken the trust with your former constituents. I believe you've also generally broken trust with Canadians as a result of the testimony you've provided.
There have been issues of business cards where you have unequivocally said.... You castigated Mr. Martin for asking the question; you dismissed it as being simply a story that was written in The Toronto Star. Then we had provided to this committee the actual business card--your member of Parliament business card--with nothing scribbled out or nothing altered on the business card. So that was one demonstration.
We heard from Mr. Gillani. In fact, while you said that after a couple of meetings you felt the business relationship wouldn't go any further and that it had ended, we heard from him that there was a contract in place and that the relationship, as far as he understood, was continuing. As a matter of fact, he described for us plans you had with him to travel to China for business.
We continue to hear these things.
The last time you were here, Mr. Jaffer, I asked you what seemed to be an insignificant question, but it was something I felt was important to fully understand. According to news stories, you had described on your personal website that you could help secure government support for businesses. You denied that through the majority of that meeting. When I finally was able to get a copy of the website, a cached copy of the website, it was as clear as day that that in fact had happened.
As soon as the news story came out originally, I actually tried to find your website. I couldn't find it. It had been taken down.
Mr. Jaffer, in your letter you read today, which we got a couple of days ago, you said you had inadvertently said this, that you didn't know about this website. You dismissed it as simply being a long lost memory.
I guess my question would be, who took down the website the day after the news story ran?
