Mr. Speaker, my question is directed to the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
According to information received from the publishing industry Mr. Ward Pitfield, who was in charge of the Ginn Publishing file at CIDC, admitted last January to an attorney for Canada Publishing that CIDC did not intend to sell Ginn Publishing. Then a week later CIDC sold Ginn to Paramount. Furthermore Mr. Pitfield confirmed recently that he had never seen a written contract between CIDC and Paramount.
Is the Minister of Canadian Heritage aware of the fact that Mr. Pitfield, the representative of CIDC on the board of directors of Ginn Publishing, has never seen a contract of sale between CIDC and Paramount, and can the minister tell us whether or not the deal has effectively been completed?