Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon, Mr. Drouin. You justify writing the letter to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services because of potential savings of a million dollars in moving costs.
Were you aware that the lease had been signed so that the Economic Development Agency of Canada could move into Place Bonaventure?
Therefore, when you made your written request, you ended up with two buildings for the same department. That obviously ended up costing a lot of money, which the Auditor General assessed at $4.6 million. If you subtract the million dollars saved by not moving, as you claim, the fact remains that your intervention ended up costing an additional $3.6 million. This is significant, despite the reasons you have given, such as moving costs, and so on. I think you would also agree that the fact that there had been a tendering process meant that the needs had been evaluated first.
I'll put the question to you. Don't you find that... You cannot justify the decision on the sole basis that a million dollars were saved in moving costs when it generated an additional $4.6 million in expenses.