Exactly. That contract was issued by David McLaughlin. As I mentioned, there's an important distinction in terms of ministers' offices and how they're managed. They are all part of the departmental vote. But the ministers' offices are not populated by public servants. The people in those offices do not work with me.
Treasury Board and PCO have been very specific about the rules that should be followed and have been very specific about the roles of the department and the role of the minister's office in that area.
In this case, for the budget of the minister's office within that departmental vote, the minister has delegated authority to contract directly from the Minister of Public Works. He may delegate that to his chief of staff, David McLaughlin, which he did, and sensibly did.
I want to just make one other comment. I alluded to it earlier. Perhaps my opening comment should have been more expansive. Within that budget allocation, the minister has delegated authority for issuing contracts to his chief of staff. That chief of staff is encouraged to seek advice from the department, but he is not required to. That's what he did. He sought advice. He was given advice.
Now, the early advice on that, from Mike Giles, was that this is how you deal with an issue like that, and this is how you approach it. But we did not discuss and we did not release specific advice on this contract, as it is contrary to our approach.