Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Harper had nevertheless been asked to come. We asked Messrs. Coulombe and Larocque, but Mr. Harper was more interested in focusing his efforts in Ontario rather than in Quebec.

Information & Ethics committee  Not at all.

Information & Ethics committee  In other words, what you're trying to say is that I was just a pawn and “we'll use you and then when we finish with you, we'll get rid of you”.

Information & Ethics committee  Are you finished, sir?

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. May I have the microphone?

Information & Ethics committee  Well, sir, to answer your question, as you said before, if I didn't get 10%, why did Elections Canada send back $8,000 to you guys?

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think Mr. Mayrand, the gentleman who asked me this, felt like asking me, “What did you do with the $8,000?” Somebody here is not telling the truth.

Information & Ethics committee  It's all right. I've got no problem with that.

Information & Ethics committee  Young man, I think it's better that you guys do your homework. As I said, if I really wasn't involved, I don't think I'd be here today and I don't think I'd be wasting these people's time, the chair's time—

Information & Ethics committee  Coming back to my question, why did Elections Canada insist that I got back $8,000?

Information & Ethics committee  Do you mean to say these are the people you guys hired and you don't know what's going on?

Information & Ethics committee  I don't think so, because even the office in Montreal didn't know what was going on between Benoît Larocque and Pierre Coulombe. Those guys didn't know what was going on. Are you giving me the same thing here too?

Information & Ethics committee  I was supposed to pay back, but they never asked for that.

Information & Ethics committee  If I wasn't regional, as you were saying before, sir, why did you guys get me involved in this?

Information & Ethics committee  Exactly.