Information & Ethics committee  At that time, there was no established program. Of course, WE Charity passed on its ideas, but it wasn't a competition. The offer to manage the program wasn't made to WE Charity. At that point there was no program. It was still being developed, but it has been established that

Information & Ethics committee  I want to be very clear that Minister Chagger was associated with the department for purposes of programming related to youth, done by order in council, and that is not unprecedented at all. A minister can be effectively cross-appointed to another department for purposes of progr

Information & Ethics committee  We have indicated that with the particular design of this program, given its scale and the desire for rapidity of beginning the program, the closest vehicle within the public service for delivering it would have been the Canada Service Corps, which was being designed and graduall

Information & Ethics committee  I think in general to this point that has been true, although the form of that may vary. The Canada Job Bank, for example, is a program of long standing which is fundamentally an IT platform for matching jobs with those looking for work. This program had features that were much m

Information & Ethics committee  The details of the design of the program had yet to be worked out. The policy was what the Prime Minister announced. The details were to be fleshed out later.

Information & Ethics committee  It was not, that I recall. The Prime Minister's own history with WE was—

Information & Ethics committee  —but beyond that, sir, no.

Information & Ethics committee  I do not believe it was.

Information & Ethics committee  To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no.

Information & Ethics committee  Either I was there or my colleague Phil Jennings, who's deputy secretary at PCO was. I would refer—

Information & Ethics committee  Well, as I said to the earlier question, this was oral, but yes, he asked for an understanding of the capacity of the public service, which was provided.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  Do you mean difficulties with that? No.

Information & Ethics committee  My understanding of what the Prime Minister has said is that he wanted assurance that the i's were dotted and the t's crossed.

Information & Ethics committee  I am not aware that he found any particular gaps in the information.