Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to thank the departmental people for being here today. You have a heavy responsibility. I think that responsibility also requires that you be able to give the most appropriate information possible.
To a question asked by Ms. Dhalla, you answered that you weren't engaged in politics. Earlier, however, you said that the minister had asked you to revise the criteria in order to see whether they were consistent with the political objective. You can reread the blues. So what you are engaged in is politics, whether you like it or not. That's not a criticism. It's a political gesture from the moment you apply political directives. Once again, that's not a reprimand, but you have to admit the truth: you play a political role.
Now the point is to see whether or not you're playing a partisan political role. In the current sequence, I would say to you that it's perceived in the field as a partisan political role. That's not because I want it that way or because I'm talking nonsense to you this morning. That's not my intention, because I know you work very hard. In the field, however, an improvised, deceitful, amateur operation is emerging. Not only is there a lack of transparency, but you're combating transparency. I'm telling you that quite honestly. Does that come from a political directive? That's another question.
I'll support my comment as follows. First, in the past, you wrote and signed this letter. From the start to the end of operations, you denied us information that we had on a de facto basis, that is to say who applied for it, who received it. The officials in the regions did their job well. It is false to say that there were no criteria; there were. The fact that you established criteria for the first time is another matter, but there were criteria and they were met.
Second, I'm talking about deceit. Here we were told the reason why...
It really irritates me when people talk off to the side. Pardon me, Mr. Chairman, but people were talking very loudly off to the side.
Why did they suddenly change all that, and why is it centralized in Montreal and Ottawa? We're told it's because there are ridings, regions where jobs are given to businesses like Wal-Mart, Rogers, Softway and so on. People are stunned and scandalized. They don't agree. Where is that happening? Why? If that's what we wanted to correct, as my Liberal colleague said a little earlier, why didn't we do it instead of throwing out the baby with the bath water? That's what you're also giving us this morning. That's why I say there's a kind of deceit. Perhaps it's not voluntary, but there is deceit.
It's the same program, even though the contrary is being claimed. It's been disguised, its name has been changed, and alterations have been made to certain criteria which amount to the same thing. It's not because a business changes the way it operates that it's no longer the same. It remains the same business. It's especially the places that have been changed in order to meet the selection criteria.
People are playing politics with that. Mr. Blackburn went into the ridings to strut and say that he had given those organizations a certain number of employees. Mr. Paradis did the same thing in Lac Mégantic, and they're doing the same thing in Sherbrooke and Victoriaville. He stopped doing it when organizations told him that they had some before and asked him why they didn't have any more now. People are playing politics with that, which we didn't see before. You must know that, when you're asked to work differently, you're being asked to play politics differently. You don't perceive where you are.
In the letter that you signed, madam, you tell us that, as a result of the Privacy Act, you cannot provide us with certain information that we previously had.
