Finance committee  Thank you for that question. I can't speculate on how other people in other departments were feeling, but we are the public service. We stand here to execute the will of the government and to help Canadians who need help. We do it proudly and we do it fairly. We provide our advi

Finance committee  I was just going to say that, again, I repeat that there was no recommendation on who was to deliver up to the 22nd when the funding decision of the government was made. After that it really is up to the Department of ESDC to negotiate the contribution agreement and all the trapp

Finance committee  I can't speculate on what I would have done or what I might do, but I certainly—

Finance committee  I imagine it would be very similar to the practice that my colleagues over at ESDC exercised. There are terms and conditions that guide entering into contribution agreements, and we would follow them in the same fashion.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I guess I would start by saying the Department of Finance and I.... In the current situation that we're describing, I'm not involved. The Department of Finance is not involved in negotiating an agreement, and we were not involved in negotiating an agr

Finance committee  That's a pretty broad question. Thank you for it. I'm not sure I can generalize. In some cases, that may be the case, but what I can say with respect to the decision by the government to enter into a contribution agreement with WE is that in fact the capacity to reach students w

Finance committee  To my knowledge, I don't think I can answer that, because I'm not an expert in social policy necessarily. I'm in the Department of Finance. However, from what we understood from our colleagues at ESDC, they were the best placed, given everything that was to be expected and the am

Finance committee  In fact, the records will show that the Canada service corps was in fact the place where ESDC started. They actually submitted a proposal to us to ramp up its capacity to offer microgrants. In fact, there was one initial proposal where they ramped up to 7,000 microgrants, and the

Finance committee  That is not my department. You will recall that leading up to the Prime Minister's announcement, there was no decision on a third party administer, so any discussion with WE was potential. Can you do social mobilization? Can you do a public awareness campaign? Can you be a partne

Finance committee  That's correct. April 16, according to my records, was the first time that WE entered into a broad-ranging discussion. We had not even settled on a grant. We are talking about a tuition credit—

Finance committee  I became aware of that proposal on April 19, when ESDC shared it with me.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  I don't have any knowledge of that.

Finance committee  I can do my best to do that, sir. All I can say is that I received it on the 19th.

Finance committee  I don't.