Well, what basically happened was this: the Economic Development Agency of Canada and all the departments that came before it, and which had responsibility at the federal level for economic development, have always had offices at Place Victoria, which is also called the Stock Exchange Tower. I believe employees have been working there for more than 30 years.
Every time that a lease is ending and there is talk of a move, it's important to realize that the prospect of moving does not always please the staff. I think that reality has to be considered here.
In December 2000 or January 2001, in accordance with established procedures, we began discussions with Public Works to see whether there was office space that could be meet our requirements at the end of our lease, which was up on March 31, 2003. That is how the whole tendering process began. As you know and heard through previous testimony, the least costly building that could meet our needs was Place Bonaventure.
As administrator and Deputy Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada, I was quite comfortable with the idea of moving to Place Bonaventure, even though I knew for a fact that it could be difficult to manage for the reason I mentioned earlier, which is that employees had been working there for more than 30 years and did not necessarily want to move. However, at the time, we believed that Place Bonaventure could fully meet our requirements, because we were beginning to need more space.
In the course of that whole process, we also had to determine whether we would keep employees working at the office on the Island of Montreal—for example, the ones who look after SMEs on the Island of Montreal—in the same office space. We therefore informed Public Works in September of 2001 that it was possible employees working at the Economic Development Agency's regional office on the Island of Montreal would not move.