Government Operations committee  The first contract for the Southeast Towers was also a pilot project that allowed us to learn from the expertise we were developing. That was a project of approximately $3 million, actually $3,950,000. The second project, the Northwest Towers, was an $8.9 million contract. In th

Government Operations committee  Thank you. Mr. Chair, as my colleague mentioned, when we first heard these allegations, we searched through all our e-mails, we questioned all our employees and we checked our documents to see whether Mr. Varin's name appeared. We found no indication that it did.

Government Operations committee  Thanks for the question. I can maybe answer the first part, and then Mr. Ring can continue. I want to emphasize the fact that the criteria were developed in 2005 for the first project of the southeast tower. We used the same criteria to go ahead with the second contract. So t

Government Operations committee  No, there were no... The only...

Government Operations committee  No, I was not there at that time.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. At the time the project was awarded to LM Sauvé, there were no allegations along those lines. We did security checks on all the employees and we got no hits, as they say. Perhaps my colleague, Mr. Wright...

Government Operations committee  Yes. I am going to ask Mr. Wright to explain the security procedures to you more clearly.

Government Operations committee  Since that question is about contracts, I am going to let Mr. Ring answer it.

Government Operations committee  I will let Mr. Ring answer the question on the contractual aspects.

Government Operations committee  There was no political interference from the minister's office for the entire duration of the project.

Government Operations committee  No, I was not there at the time.

Government Operations committee  At the time, there was an assistant deputy minister called Yvette Aloïsi, but, in the past, several other people were also in charge.

Government Operations committee  No.

Government Operations committee  Thank you for the question. As we have explained, in 2007, a different, separate branch, the Parliamentary Precinct Branch, was established, and Mr. McGrath had no connection with it.

Government Operations committee  At the time, there was a desire to give the projects on Parliament Hill the importance they deserved. The projects were tremendously important and needed special attention. Also, at the time, in 2007, we had funding approval for the next five years. That gave us the money we need