Mr. Speaker, in 1998, the numbered company belonging to Alain Renaud, a leading Liberal organizer, gave $63,000 to the Liberal Party of Canada. Not long afterward, a company owned by his brother Benoît received a sponsorship contract for $390,000, an excellent return on the investment. Alain Renaud's defence of this was, “We are not the ones behind this, some important people are involved”.
Since Alain Renaud was just one of the cogs in the wheel, can the Minister of Public Works tell us who within government was controlling the Liberal Party money machine that the sponsorship program represented? Who are these people—