Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Through you, I'll be making some comments before I ask my questions. It's really unfortunate that Mr. Cuzner isn't here because I think he would benefit from hearing them, but nevertheless I'll put them on the record so that he can read them later. It was my understanding that he was trying to impugn our government for not having all the efficiencies or perhaps not spending the money meant for Atlantic Canada in the proper way.
I was first elected in 2000, and I had my very first brush with ACOA in about 2001. It was an ACOA refugee, I believe the correct terminology would be. This gentleman had been the person who had to legitimize any expense claims. When an expense claim came to him and there was not a matching receipt, he refused the claim. Then there was also the aspect of March Madness, where he was asked to backdate invoices so that they could claim them at the end of the year.
Anyway, he refused to do that. As a consequence they took work away from him, to the point where eventually he was just sitting in a room with nothing to do. He said to his superiors, “I might as well be in the Legion drinking beer.” And they said, “Which Legion?” He told them which Legion, and that brought him to my riding, under an ACOA program called Exchanges Canada. So the person who worked in the Legion in this community went down to ACOA to learn business management from ACOA's standpoint, while this person went to the Legion to learn the business of the Legion there. That is how they took care of their problem and were able to get on with phony expenses again.
That was the point I wanted to make. And that was under the Liberal government.
What we are doing here is trying to ensure that the money goes to legitimate entities, and that more money goes, because we're taking away a board that really doesn't have functionality when it can be done through the different framework.
When members of the board were selected, what was the process? Was there an election? Was it a political appointment? How did the board members' positions come to be?