Mr. Hubbard points out, and I quote, that he and his colleagues are “not really concerned about your ability to do a good job”. The people he was referring to are Ms. Mintz and Mr. MacPhie. So we now have an opposition that's put together a hearing to look into the work, which they admit does not concern them, of some contractors who provided value for money and who broke no rules.
We know that this group--we're talking about Mr. MacPhie--for example, put in over 800 hours of work. That's not disputed by anyone. They went over 400 pages of budgetary material and helped with writing and editing that material. They had sessions in Calgary, Winnipeg, Vancouver, North York, and Montreal to gather feedback from everyday Canadians on the budget. And they did all that for what is the standard hourly rate, if not significantly less. It raises a lot of questions about why we're actually here having these hearings.
Ms. Mintz is highly qualified. If she were billing in the legal community, with her qualifications, she would have been billing at a much higher rate than she ever did the government. She's a hardworking person. No one disputes any of that.
I guess, Minister, it all comes down to the fact that you know these people, and therefore there must be something nefarious about their hard work. That's what this is really about, isn't it?