Mr. Chair, I would like to share my time with my colleague from Scarborough—Guildwood.
I am delighted to see the Minister of Finance in the House. I look forward to a good dialogue this evening.
In our parliamentary system, ministers, not staff, are supposed to assume responsibility when things go wrong, so my first question to the minister is this: why, when he clearly broke the rules on a sole source contract to a friend, did he not stand in his place and apologize to Canadian taxpayers rather than shirk all responsibility and place the blame on his chief of staff?