Mr. Speaker, it sounds like the hon. member is paraphrasing another leader we know, “I did not have personal relations with those bureaucrats; I had my assistant do it”.
Who is this guy that government members went to bat for? His name is Yvon Duhaime. He is a three time convicted criminal. Not just that, but he is the guy who took that money losing property off the Prime Minister's hands. It gets worse than that. The Prime Minister's personal assistant actually sat in on the steering committee where Duhaime got permission to get this money.
The message to the bureaucrats was perfectly clear: This is a friend of the Prime Minister's, so let us cough up with the cash. That sounds awfully close to influence peddling.