Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Casey, thank you for opening the door by raising this subject.
Thank you, Minister. We are pleased to welcome you. Of course, I'm going to talk about the monument. Surely you and others were expecting it.
It's standard practice in the world of public art for the Department of Canadian Heritage to partner with another department to set up a competition and a jury of experts to select the winning team for a given project. I say that for the benefit of all my colleagues, though they're probably well aware.
In the current case, Minister, as you and Mr. Casey were saying, the ministers of Canadian Heritage and Veterans Affairs effectively initiated the process and decided to override the jury's decision to award the contract to another team based on the results of an anonymous online survey. I think that's exactly where you were headed, Minister. It should be noted that even the jury was made aware of the survey's content and took it into consideration.
Minister, did the decision to reject the Daoust team come from your office or from Mr. Trudeau's office?