Government Operations committee  I apologize, but my French is not very good. Again, that's a question I really can't answer, because I don't know what he did. Obviously, this was done without our knowledge. We did not pay him to lobby and did not have any kind of financial agreement with him, so it's a question I really don't feel comfortable answering, not knowing what he actually did.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  Certainly there was no correspondence with me on that matter. I wasn't even aware of that till the press announcements a while back.

Government Operations committee  Yes.

Government Operations committee  No, we used a registered lobbyist to do that.

Government Operations committee  We had put in a proposal last fall for that but did not get any funds.

Government Operations committee  It was very informal. Essentially, one of his interests was trying to work with municipalities to put rooftop systems on the buildings of municipalities. As the conversation ended, I said, show me a business plan, which is generally the statement I make to a lot of people who come to us with project ideas.

Government Operations committee  In my career...I've actually been in Canada since 2000. In a former company I worked with Industry Canada, and we did receive funding through Industry Canada. Canadian Solar did receive some CIDA funding back in 2001, I think, to help with some initiatives in China. Since then, David, you might have better knowledge, but I don't believe any other funding has been received.

Government Operations committee  That's correct.

Government Operations committee  Sure, Madam Chairman. I'd like to give a brief background on Canadian solar and Canadian Solar Solutions. As stated earlier, I'm the president of Canadian Solar Solutions. This is a subsidiary we created about a year ago, in June of 2009. We are wholly owned by our parent company, Canadian Solar Inc., which is a publicly traded company on NASDAQ.

Government Operations committee  I've never met with Mr. Jaffer. I had two meetings with Mr. Glémaud. I should back up and say that we have two offices here in Ontario, one in Kitchener, where I'm located, and then David runs our Ottawa office. Last summer, on two of my visits to Ottawa, Mr. Glémaud was there to talk about potential projects that he might be able to bring to us.