Government Operations committee  You were looking at the deputy; do you want him to answer?

Government Operations committee  I'm going to answer your question. I think it's important that you know... When I arrived—

Government Operations committee  All right, I'll answer you. I was sworn in on the 6th. My first briefing on real property affairs was on March 1. At that time, I was told we were negotiating with the owner of that site. I simply let the people do their job. They're doing a good job and I'm going to let them to their job.

Government Operations committee  Mr. Loiselle had nothing to do with the talks or the negotiations. No one from my department played any role—

Government Operations committee  I don't know what role you're talking about.

Government Operations committee  No one from my office had any role to play. I'm told the letter of intent was signed on January 10 or 15, before the election was held. So the acceleration... As I said, I let the people do their job.

Government Operations committee  Do you want to know whether Mr. Doucet met them? Is that your question? Ask your question.

Government Operations committee  As Minister, I answer that he did not play any role. Mr. McGrath, who is responsible for the file, may want to answer your question.

Government Operations committee  Mr. O'Connor has answered that question a number of times in the House. I don't know whether you asked it.

Government Operations committee  That's it. The Minister and the Prime Minister clearly explained all the rules on those activities to to Mr. O'connor before he became a minister. The Department of Public Works handles procurement. Whether it's the department you referred to, the Department of the Environment, or Mr.

Government Operations committee  That's a very good question. As an example, this week I opened, officially, the roof at the top of the C.D. Howe Building. The roof needed to be redone, and it was redone with the greening in mind. I'm not an expert on how they did this, but they laid out a lot of soil and different types of materials, and on top of the building are a number of plants.

Government Operations committee  We can't force landlords to make changes. Where we're a large lessee renewing a lease, obviously we've got some leverage, so as I said earlier, that's when we'll use the leverage. When we own buildings.... Some of the buildings in our portfolio are not young. The average age is 43 years, so many of those buildings require investment.

Government Operations committee  In fact, I can't answer, because we're currently negotiating with the owner. Some aspects of the transaction obviously can't be shared with you. However, to give you a good answer to your question, we have to go back a little in time. As you may know, the origin of this transaction goes back well before the 2006 election.

Government Operations committee  As you stated in your question, we are bound by several trade accords. I thought the deputy was going to give me a piece of paper giving me the breakdown between what one would call non-Canadian purchase versus Canadian purchase. I know I've asked the question in the past; I know I had the answer, but you'd be surprised at how little non-Canadian purchases are.

Government Operations committee  Obviously the military is different. I view these large tickets as.... It depends how we want to do this and it depends what we want to buy, but if you exclude--