Thank you for pausing long enough for me to answer a series of questions, and I'll try to do that now. If you can show me the same respect as I'm showing you, which is to wait for you to finish and then to respond, I'd appreciate that.
I will repeat, I do find it ironic that this entire episode, taken place under the Liberal regime, during a period of time in which we saw zero action on a very serious matter.... And I am not pointing culpability at any elected person. I'm just saying there was zero action.
I'll repeat what I said. When I became aware of this and posed the questions first of all to the commissioner and heard from him that the matter was indeed being looked at by the Auditor General, I contacted the Auditor General and said I would be looking forward to her deliberations on this. As a matter of fact, we were all looking forward to her deliberations on this. I met with her in November on that, and she confirmed to me that she would be publicly making her observations known on the whole matter. She did that on February 21, I believe, in front of this committee. On March 28, at this committee, allegations were so serious about wrongdoing, which was a surprise to many of us, that the very next day, March 29, I announced that there had to be an investigation into this matter, and by April 12 we had announced that there would be an investigative body put together to do that. They began their work. They delivered their work on June 15.
I agree with the chairman. I don't think this should descend into political partisanship. You've certainly been known to take that position on this particular issue--again somewhat ironically given that it was a Liberal mismanagement--but that's your right to do.
I took action. I took swift action, not wanting, of course, to undercut the Auditor General but wanting to hear fully. She had a right to speak fully, not just to me but to the committee and to the public, about this. Knowing that no action had been taken for years, my colleagues and I determined it was time. We wanted action. We wanted answers. We wanted it as soon as possible, but we also wanted there to be prudence in the whole investigation so that we could make some headway on this.
That's in fact what I did, and I think the record shows that my movement on this was not only exemplary because it was recommended by people wiser than I, including members of your caucus, but also because the people of Canada wanted answers to the questions that were being posed--very serious matters. We took those matters very seriously, and we acted on them, and we continue to act on them.