Information & Ethics committee  I certainly checked my records. I knew I would be getting questions about this. He was on the invitation list, among a number of other people who would be at the meeting. Yes, it's fair to say that I would have known he would be there. If I could just indicate—

Information & Ethics committee  I was aware that he was a former ambassador, absolutely. How could I not be?

Information & Ethics committee  I have to go back to what I said earlier. We had many thousands of firms contacting us. It was our practice, when firms contacted us offering help, to take that at face value and have an initial meeting. We had an initial meeting with Palantir—

Information & Ethics committee  Mr. Chair, those questions are best directed to Mr. MacNaughton and his colleagues. I was not invited by Mr. MacNaughton. I attended a meeting that was suggested by Palantir. At the conclusion of the meeting, we actually told Palantir that we did not think that its software had u

Information & Ethics committee  I was at a meeting to see a demonstration of this company's software. We did not have a discussion about doing business with the company. It was to understand more about their capabilities—

Information & Ethics committee  Madam Chair, maybe I could just reiterate that there was no short list. We actually made a practice, including for those thousands of companies I mentioned, of being systematic in getting back to each one with a phone call or some sort of return engagement. We met with, I think,

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll just pull up my opening remarks. I'll be very brief here. Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today. It is my pleasure to appear before this committee as it studies issues of conflicts of interest and the Lobbying Act

Information & Ethics committee  I'm coming to the end of my opening remarks, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be with all of you. I will conclude my remarks there, and I will be very happy to answer your questions. Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  I attended a meeting at which Mr. MacNaughton was present, but I did not actually speak with or correspond with Mr. MacNaughton. I was at a meeting that he was at, yes. I was invited there by colleagues for a demonstration of software.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm just looking at my notes. I attended a meeting on April 3 for 45 minutes. It was a Zoom call, one of these video conferences, with a number of other people. It was hosted by Palantir. Mr. MacNaughton and a number of his colleagues were in attendance.

Information & Ethics committee  Perhaps I could provide a bit of context, as it might be helpful.

Information & Ethics committee  I'll be brief, but it's directly relevant to your question. One of the things we did in responding to the pandemic was to have a call to action for Canadian industries and companies that wished to help out. In that call, almost 200 digital service firms and software firms, large

Industry committee  I think I would suggest that the honourable member direct that question to Public Services and Procurement Canada because, frankly, most of the procurement action has been done by PSPC. What I can say very briefly to answer the member's question as it regards ISED is that when

Industry committee  Without speaking of a specific contract, because again, I want to be mindful of that—

Industry committee  Generally speaking, to the member's question, absolutely, trade is a consideration. Certainly the lawyers look at the agreements that are signed. We want to make sure Canadian interests are protected. I'm not speaking about any specific contract, but there are certainly exceptio