Mr. Speaker, when a regular Canadian applies for employment insurance or a disability tax credit or a fishing licence, he or she is normally required to complete all kinds of forms and go through all kinds of hurdles. There is always a paper trail. However, when it came to the sponsorship program the Auditor General says that there were no vouchers, no documentation, no paper trail.
Could a minister, any minister, explain exactly how a cheque was generated? Did a minister just phone up and say “Please write a cheque for a few hundred thousand dollars”? How was it done? Has the system been changed so ministers cannot order cheques verbally?