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But Joe Hargrave, minister of Crown Investments Corporation, said it’s somewhat less, around $14 million.

He said the programs have been a success, despite a few bad investments over their years in operation. All told, he said the losses amount to just 2.9 per cent of the total.

“I wish it was zero,” he said. “I’m not comfortable with anything, but you could ask the Royal Bank of Canada, the Bank of Montreal what their loan losses are like, and if they were at 2.9 per cent they probably wouldn’t complain.”

Hargrave said it isn’t common practice to bring someone like Kook before the committee. He said he can answer all of Sproule’s questions himself.

“If they have other questions why wouldn’t they ask me the questions?” said Hargrave. “I’m the minister responsible.”

Sproule called Kook a “well-connected Sask. Party insider.” Westcap donated $7,925 to the Saskatchewan Party in 2018. She said her party has “simple questions” about the business decisions he made when managing the funds.

“A lot of money went out the door on these, and we want to make sure that the work that Westcap Management was doing was responsible,” she said.

“It’s very difficult to get transparency and accountability when you don’t have the proper witnesses in front of the committee process. These are public funds,” she added. “They should be publicly examined.”

Specifically, she wants to know how much work Westcap put into managing the funds. The company earned about $10 million in management fees, but Sproule worries that the workload on FNMF, in particular, may have been quite light.