Information & Ethics committee  No, those ministers' offices directly contacted me.

Information & Ethics committee  The ministers' offices did.

Information & Ethics committee  No, we did not pay the influencers.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. I think that at that time, there was a feeling of togetherness, that it was “all hands on deck”. People felt strongly that they wanted to get the information out to Canadians—

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Nobody raised it.

Information & Ethics committee  In retrospect or maybe on a go-forward basis, I think that preventive screens around conflict of interest would be a worthwhile outcome of this committee's undertaking, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think there was a screen in those cases either. I've never been asked that question. I've never been asked a conflict-of-interest question. There's never been a screen in any of my—

Information & Ethics committee  It, again, never occurred to me that I couldn't do this work for this minister, work of a nature similar to work that I had done for other ministers, simply because I knew her better. It did not occur to me.

Information & Ethics committee  I do think that one opportunity to remedy this would be to put preventive screens in place proactively, and maybe certification, so that any supplier.... We heard from the procurement officer a few days ago, who talked about the 10,000 contracts of this nature that go through the ministry.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, or any kind of preventive screen, any kind of flag that would raise the question. I know that this question was asked of the deputy minister in procurement on Tuesday. Somebody said, “In this ministry of hundreds of people, didn't anyone raise a flag?” The answer was no. Nobody raised a flag.

Information & Ethics committee  I was communicating with a number of individuals in her office.

Information & Ethics committee  That's in total.

Information & Ethics committee  That's correct. I've done work for three ministers.