Government Operations committee  Through you, Madam Chair, the decision by the council on December 6 is best referenced in terms of the wording of the resolution that they passed. It was a multi-part resolution. The first part of it, as I said, spoke to meeting the condition that the Treasury Board had set for the existing project and the condition to get the contribution agreement from the federal government, which was to reaffirm support for the north-south LRT project.

Government Operations committee  Chair, as I indicated earlier, I'd refrain from speaking to a potential result, but I would go back and say we did indicate publicly that there would be a potential for impacts on the costs of the project should it be delayed beyond its October 5 signing. People may wonder how that can be the case when we had a fixed-price contract, as we've indicated.

Government Operations committee  The decision on the 14th was to not complete financial closure to the contract, to execute the contract, and that decision was fundamentally based on the fact that on that date we only had one signed contribution agreement from a senior government. That was from the provincial government.

Government Operations committee  Through you, Madam Chair, the answer is no.

Government Operations committee  The simple answer to that, Madam Chair, is no, they did not. On December 6, 2006, they voted first to confirm, and directed the approval of the north-south light rail agreement project. They then moved further to that to direct me to negotiate with the consortium intended adjustments to the downtown scope.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, what we did hear from Treasury Board, as Mr. Wouters said earlier today, was that in fact Treasury Board did approve the Transport Canada submission with a condition that did not relate to anything technical or to contractual issues or to the business case that was done by Transport Canada and met the requirements of that department.

Government Operations committee  Yes. There was no contact made with the City of Ottawa either, to my knowledge.

Government Operations committee  No, the city did not. The city, as I've said, also met all information requests in a proactive manner from seven federal government departments in terms of their due diligence as well.

Government Operations committee  Through you, Madam Chair, in terms of accuracy, there was not a letter that was received. A copy of the contract was requested through the officials in the transport ministry. The purpose that was stated was that the contract was required prior to Treasury Board finally reviewing and making a decision on the file.

Government Operations committee  Chair, through you, we didn't anticipate those. We would have appreciated the opportunity to clarify exactly what the purpose and intent of those clauses in the contract were for. They were for the purpose of allowing any delay in the schedule that was required in order to bring financial closure to the contract.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, I guess I would characterize it as unexpected, but there had been a fair amount of discussion at the time in terms of the extent to which the contract was a fixed-price contract. I think, as Mr. Chartrand confirmed earlier, that was the case. And more to the point, he confirmed that the federal government contribution was capped at $200 million.

Government Operations committee  I'm not personally aware of all the framework of that infrastructure funding agreement. In general, the city was very aware of the need to ensure that we had identified and were able to meet all conditions from both the federal government and the provincial government as we were moving through this procurement process and negotiating these contribution agreements--and we did that.

Government Operations committee  As I indicated, I am not aware of any conditions like that in the agreement. However, it was the city's understanding throughout the process that the contribution agreements would be subject to management board approval in the case of the provincial government, and final Treasury Board approval in the case of the federal government.

Government Operations committee  Yes, that's right. It was the city's position that under the memorandum of understanding that had been negotiated, the city met all of the conditions. Mr. Chartrand can go into more detail in terms of the negotiation of the contribution agreement and its framework. Clearly we were dealing with three separate governments.

Government Operations committee  Madam Chair, on behalf of the city representatives I would just say that we are happy to be able to respond to your request to be here today. We will answer the questions that are posed to us to the best of our ability, the only exception or issue being what you raised at the outset, which is that there may be some questions that I will need to consult with counsel on vis-à-vis how those questions may or may not affect the city's interest in terms of responding to the legal claim we're currently responding to.