Mr. Rahme, I appreciate that there is a general practice or a general process, but this was not a normal application. It was an application from the Verschuren Centre, in the name of the chair. It was her vanity project. She served as a director. Staff flagged the funding request for $6.8 million from SDTC to be in a conflict. Therefore, if that's a conflict, isn't it also a conflict, or doesn't it give rise to the perception of a conflict, for SDTC to say that it can't fund them directly, but it's going to be the agent of the Verschuren Centre to help secure funding from other government departments and agencies?
On November 4th, 2024. See this statement in context.