Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Who is that question for?

Information & Ethics committee  That may be speculation. We would not be able to prove it without a public inquiry or a police investigation. I may well have an opinion, but the lawyer in me is going to reply by saying that I don't have the standard of proof I require. It does raise suspicions, though, and they could be reasonable.

Information & Ethics committee  I am going to answer you by quoting what Justice Gomery wrote in 2005. I find it sad that here we are 15 years later, and in much the same place. In his preface, Justice Gomery wrote: The Report that follows chronicles a depressing story of multiple failures to plan a government program appropriately and to control waste—the story of greed, venality and misconduct both in government and advertising and communications agencies, all of which contributed to the loss and misuse of huge amounts of money at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for the question and for your kind words, Ms. Lattanzio. Yes indeed, the federal government could learn a lot from what is going in Quebec. That scandal is now behind us, but it wasn't so long ago. To motivate myself and to prepare for the meeting today, I reviewed the report by the honourable Justice Gomery, which was released in 2005 following the sponsorship scandal.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right.

Information & Ethics committee  Good afternoon, distinguished members of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. First, I want to make it clear that I'm not an ethicist or an ethics expert. I'll leave it to much more qualified individuals to shed the proper light on this matter. I don't claim to have a thorough understanding of the rules for awarding public contracts at the federal level.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, I'm ready, Mr. Chair.