Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of National Defence.
The persistent refusal of the minister to exclude Agusta from the bidding process for new helicopters is particularly hard to understand, because the man sitting on the minister's left, the current Minister of Human Resources Development, asked for a judicial inquiry when the Conservative government signed the first contract with that firm.
Can the minister tell the House whether his unacceptable refusal to exclude Agusta from the bidding process is linked to pressures brought to bear on the government by Agusta's lobbyists, namely Daniel Despins, a former director of communications for the Liberal Party of Canada, and James Pacey, a former special adviser to Pierre Elliott Trudeau?