That is correct, but there is some more context to it.
At the same time that we sent the misconduct report to Antonio Utano, Amir had also sent an email to Ying-Ying Ong, who was another project liaison at the CBSA, requesting that immediately payments to the contractors—Dalian and Coradix—be stopped and any payments that had already been made to the contractors by the CBSA be refunded. We also stated very explicitly in the misconduct reports we submitted that we would not be accepting payments from these contractors and that we are not comfortable being associated with these contractors.
After we sent that, Diane Daly then intervened and sent the email saying that the payment had to be issued right away. We were also told by the CBSA that it was impossible to request a refund from the contractors and the money had—quote, unquote—gone down the drain. We were put in a position where we felt that taxpayer money had been wasted, and we had no other choice but to receive those payments through those contractors so that taxpayer money would not have, essentially, been flushed down the toilet.