Information & Ethics committee  I don't have an answer to give you. It's not that I refuse to answer; you tell me—

Information & Ethics committee  I didn't do it because, in the media atmosphere prevailing last fall, everything was taking on incredible proportions.

Information & Ethics committee  That was better. At least that's what we concluded, rightly or wrongly. He had to come and testify here and he would be able to correct the facts. That's it.

Information & Ethics committee  I was in charge of logistics, operation, organization of international travelling, and different roles that he would assign to me.

Information & Ethics committee  I was hired by Mr. Mulroney as a public relations consultant in the summer of 1995 to help him with a completely different project, and then in November 1995 on this specific case.

Information & Ethics committee  Zero, except what I read in the media, and my recollection is simply that there was a project to build light-armoured vehicles on Cape Breton Island.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely none.

Information & Ethics committee  I would like you to be a little more specific. While I was there did I know...?

Information & Ethics committee  No, of course I didn't know anything about that.

Information & Ethics committee  There was a letter sent on September 29, 1995, in which the drafter--it was signed by a public servant of the Department of Justice, but I think the drafter was a member of the RCMP--was stating, without any attempt to make it conditional or anything like that, or to qualify it in any way, that this letter was of the utmost importance because it had to do with the criminal activities of the former Prime Minister of Canada, from the day he took office in 1984 to the day he left office in 1993.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I understood that it was a retainer to represent him in projects in which he was involved.

Information & Ethics committee  I'm coming to it. He told me what he was faced with, which was this letter. I remember clearly asking him--so does he--if there was any truth to the letter that was sent over. He said absolutely not.

Information & Ethics committee  No. He was not lying to me, because there was no truth to what was in that letter.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.