It was July 2007.
I understand that most if not all ministers do what I did, which was delegate the administrative authority to my chief of staff in writing. I understand deputy ministers do that as well. These are large departments. I don't think, quite frankly, it's reasonable or that Canadians would want us to spend our time doing the administrative work, whether we're ministers or deputy ministers.
I delegated that responsibility to my chief of staff. I understand now that there were communications between the department and my chief of staff about some of the issues, but they were not shared with me.