Mr. Speaker, I was on a panel last week with the member for Oxford who publicly stated that the government knew from the very beginning that the costs of this summit would be in the $900 million range. Those are not my words; those are the words of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety. Yet the government put the figure of $179 million in the estimates tabled on March 3.
If the government believes in transparency and accountability, and if it knew all along that the costs were $900 million, why would the government have represented to Canadians just a little over 65 days ago that the costs would be $179 million?