Mr. Speaker, according to the government, the only way to go about awarding sponsorship contracts is that used by the former Secretary of State for Amateur Sport, where Canadian heritage ordered that a firm be hired to organize the minister's tour and the Department of Public Works and Government Services obliged and approved the contract.
In the case of the firearms communication plan contract, how does the President of the Treasury Board explain that her department did not realize that a contract had been authorized by public works without any request from the Department of Justice? Does this not reveal a lack—