Thank you very much, Chair.
And thank you very much for your attendance today. Notwithstanding where we end up on the issues, I can't imagine this is easy, as an individual. This is not going to be fun today, but I do hope you leave here at least feeling you've been treated fairly--that's important--and if not, I know that Mr. Whitehall is here to help you assert your rights. But I do hope that, as tough as it is, you do feel that it's fair.
Having said that, I do have some tough questions. The first one is to set the stage, if you will. My late father, Leonard George Christopherson, taught me that money talks, even if it just says, “hush”.
So the issue here on the one side is that it looks like, or at least an argument can be made.... The political allegation is that the storyline goes like this: you were selected specifically by the government to go into this position, and the secret directive was, make sure nothing gets out that hurts us. That would explain why there were so few investigations, why there were so few--in fact, zero--findings of any problems. And when it looked like the AG was onto this gig, then suddenly the government and you got together and decided you needed to get out of there. To make sure that the government's wish was achieved that everything that happened during the interim time didn't come out, there was a document signed that said you wouldn't talk about anything, and here is close to a half a million dollars to encourage you to honour that. That's the picture on the one side of it.
I have questions about the AG's report, but I'd like to ask you questions about your earlier answers, when you said that, yes, they--meaning the government--wanted you to leave. Can you tell me how that was conveyed to you?