For whatever reason, the minister wanted to sell it as a CIDA decision, rather than as her own decision. Why she doesn't wish to own up to that decision, I don't really know. I don't know why for 13, 14, 15 months she kept continuing to spin the same story that it didn't meet CIDA criteria, when we know that it met CIDA criteria. Margaret Biggs said it met CIDA criteria, and she repeated just last week that it met CIDA criteria.
The core point here is that her own parliamentary secretary was caught up in this web of deceit, and he didn't know it. He had no idea that he was in effect a mouthpiece for the government to speak to this issue, to effectively mislead members of Parliament who were trying to do their job to find out what the real reason for the funding cut might be. That is the core point.
Otherwise, as I said, why would he have apologized? What is the point of an apology if in fact he didn't intend to.... In his case, I don't think he intended to mislead, but he in fact was caught up in a larger game plan by the government, for whatever reason, to download that responsibility onto the ministry itself.
As the Speaker observed in his first ruling, CIDA officials must be more than just mildly disturbed that they have been made to look as if they were the ones who made the decision.
Chair, you may have insight into this that I don't have, but I don't know and I don't understand why the minister didn't just stand up months ago and say “This was my decision, I made it, and this was the reason I made it”, etc. She has let it hang out there for way too long that this is a--