Mr. Speaker, the minister is obviously very desperate to be saying that. I do not know if he forgot his Ritalin today.
Last spring I asked the President of the Treasury Board why he rewarded the Conservative transition team member and friend of the Prime Minister with a big untendered contract for PR advice for the so-called accountability act. The minister said that the contract had been cancelled and that the money had been returned.
Today we learn that is not so. From access to information we now learn that the minister paid Marie-Josée Lapointe $13,462 for two weeks of work. This was for a contract that he said was cancelled.
It is time for the minister to come clean and demand that every cent of the more than $13,000 be returned to Canadian taxpayers.