Let me put it this way, and this does upset me, actually. What we do as politicians when we do this kind of thing, when we try to create clouds of suspicion and smear good Canadians who give value for money when they do work for the government, many for pure public policy reasons and not for any compensation, is discourage people from doing it. We discourage good people from taking on government contracts.
The type of contract that MacPhie & Company took means that they have to give up most of their other work for a period of time, because they have to intensely work on the budget. It means working weekends, working nights, working long hours, having no time off, and taking no ski trips in the wintertime--none of that stuff--as we approach the budget date. It mean being quiet about it all and being confidential about it all so that there are no leaks and there is no sharing of information. So it's a monk-like duty they enter into when they do this.
Quite frankly, I think we have to be careful before we cast aspersions on people who are prepared to undertake arduous work for reasonable compensation.