Thank you very much, Chair.
Good morning, Speaker Scheer.
Madame O'Brien, it's good to see you again.
My first question is about something not directly contained in the main estimates, but something that the Board of Internal Economy has dealt with. I refer to a memorandum that was sent out from the Board of Internal Economy on March 5 of this year, which in part states, under the subheading “Restricted Employees and Contractors”, that effective immediately members, House officers, and research officers are not permitted to hire political party executives for employment in contracting services.
I'm assuming this is a result of a controversy that surfaced a number of months ago with respect to Gilles Duceppe, the former leader of the Bloc Québécois, in which he was accused of having a party executive on his House of Commons payroll. Since this memorandum has come out and it explicitly states that from now on, going forward, political members, House officers, leaders, etc., are not allowed to do what Mr. Duceppe did in the past, are there any plans from the Board of Internal Economy, or from Parliament for that matter, to try to recover funds paid out to a party executive from the Bloc Québécois' House of Commons budget?