Madam Chairman, my first question for the minister has to do with the fact that for a number of weeks this has been an issue in the House of Commons. We have had a situation where the entire government seems to be funnelling all kinds of contracts for advertising, polling and sponsorship programs through public works to all kinds of Liberal friends.
Very often the criteria for receiving these contracts are non-existent. There are verbal contracts and there is money going to companies like Groupaction which are paid to produce reports but then do not produce any reports at all or produce photocopies of reports. These are all Liberal friends.
These companies then turn around and in many cases give back huge amounts of money to the Liberal Party of Canada. In some cases, like with the case of the former public works minister, they are in a position to receive a personal benefit. In the situation of the former minister, he actually stayed at the chalet of one of the people with whom his department does business.
My point is that this is a huge issue. It has gripped the country and calls into question the entire integrity of the government.
The minister has been saying for a number of hours now that he has not really been briefed adequately on all of these things. My question is, what in the world has the minister been talking to his officials about over the last nine days if he cannot tell us fundamentally what went wrong with companies like Groupaction?