Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Gagliano, for taking the time and responding to our request.
I'm sure you appreciate what our difficulty has been throughout this. There was a need for more expanded new space. The train was started. The process was going down the road. Your office put a hold on things and then it got started up again. We got through the whole process, all the way through our whole flow chart here--tens of thousands of dollars probably to go through the whole process for Place Bonaventure. Then, at the very end, for a reason we can't yet find out, nor can we determine who made the decision, there was a decision taken to do a complete 180-degree turnaround and go back to what was then the fourth winning bidder. We're having a problem with it, and that's why we're continuing to push this, sir. There is an unanswered question here.
I appreciate you weren't the minister at the latter stages. So I want to obviously focus on when you were minister. For instance, can you help me understand. It's this business of starting and stopping and starting and stopping that confuses me the most. The process is going along. At tab 7--and you probably have the same book as we do, or something similar--on June 12, there is a memo from the regional director, Quebec region, to the ADM real property services.
On that date, this memo says:
At the June 12, 2001 meeting of the Investment Management Board (IMB), a request to approve a lease project via public tender call was submitted for Canada Economic Development (CED) [...].
The rest of it is the detail.
Then--and this is on June 12, 2001--in the fourth paragraph it says:
A few hours after the board met, we were informed that the Minster's office had an interest in this project. It asked the region to put the project on hold.
Former Minister, can you tell us why? What was the rationale for that hold?