Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. There's never a dull moment. If I had known it was this much fun, I would have been here way earlier in the term.
I want the opportunity to respond to the amendment, because there's some really interesting language being used, both by the mover of the amendment and by previous speakers from the government side, and that's this language around a “contract”.
I would argue that had this been in an official contract, due diligence would have been in place and we wouldn't be in this situation. However, that's not what happened.
Let's be very clear about what happened. What happened was, as has been touted, there was a contribution agreement made that circumvented a lot of the basic practices and principles that have led to not just the language issue but a myriad of ethical issues that call into question the Conflict of Interest Act, call into question “gifts”, call into question all sorts of improprieties around this particular deal.
It was suggested that ministers in fact don't have to look at or do due diligence around this. That is, again, not the case. It is true that in testimony, Minister Chagger was very clear about what due diligence was done on the file and what wasn't.