$17,000 for personal expenses to his riding association. These expenses included meals in Paris and Milan, and theatre tickets in London. Cordiano insisted that these expenses were related to riding activities, and refused to resign. McGuinty defended Cordiano in public, claiming he had "complete confidence" in the minister. At around the same time, Minister of Transportation Harinder Takhar was accused of a conflict-of-interest, after visiting a company that he owned in a blind trust. Takhar acknowledged that he made "an error in judgement", but denied any wrongdoing. Both Cordiano and Takhar were retained in their portfolios following a cabinet shuffle on June 29, 2005. The matter was sent to the provincial ethics commissioner, who on January 4, 2006, ruled that Takhar had violated Ontario's integrity guidelines by not maintaining an arms length relationship with the trustee appointed to run his blind trust. McGuinty has defended his minister, and has rejected calls to remove him from cabinet, even after the Integrity Commissioner issued his finding. In the same cabinet shuffle, Premier McGuinty withdrew from the Intergovernmental Affairs portfolio and became the province's first Minister of Research and Innovation. Third year On October 11, 2005, police raided the Sorbara Group offices — owned by Greg Sorbara and his brothers — as part of the ongoing Royal Group Technologies investigation. The warrant stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe Sorbara and other directors of Royal Group defrauded the company and shareholders when they bought land in Brampton, that was owned by a subsidiary of the Sorbara Group. Sorbara initially resisted opposition calls for him to step down, then resigned as Minister of Finance the same day. He consistently denied any knowledge of the specific allegations against him, and sued the RCMP to either clarify their case against him or withdraw their investigation. Following Sorbara's resignation, Dwight Duncan was appointed as Minister of Finance and Chair of the Management Board. Donna Cansfield took over Duncan's responsibility as Minister of Energy and Jim Bradley as Government House Leader. The next day, the McGuinty government put forward a throne speech in October reiterating their priorities of health, education and economic prosperity. The speech outlined plans to offer the first money-back guarantee on a public service: a refund for people who do not receive a birth certificate within 15 days of applying on-line. On November 18, 2005, it was announced that Ontario's Drive Clean emissions program