events that an agreement had been reached between 11 of its member Chinese-Canadian groups and the federal Cabinet, wherein the Queen-in-Council would pay CA$12.5 million for the creation of a new non-profit foundation to educate Canadians about anti-Chinese discrimination, but with a specific pre-condition that no apology would be expected from the government. The NCCC was formed on a platform of "no apology and no individual compensation," and was seen by many as the reason the Liberal government selected them as the representative group to negotiate the deal without any prior consultation with the Chinese Canadian community at large. The Department of Canadian Heritage announced on November 24, 2005 that the agreed upon funding would be reduced to $2.5 million. It was later revealed that the Minister for Asia and Pacific Affairs, Raymond Chan, who claimed to have negotiated the deal, purposely misled both the ministers of the Crown and the public. Some of the groups named in the agreement later stated publicly that their names had been used without permission and in other cases, several other groups listed did not even exist. The surprise Liberal agreement caused a great outcry in the Chinese Canadian community, as the purported deal with the NCCC had been conducted without their input, resulting in an escalation in the redress movement, nationwide. Bill C-333, the Chinese Canadian Recognition and Redress Act, a private member's bill, was tabled in the federal parliament in order to implement the deal in November 2005. While C-333 purported to acknowledge, commemorate and educate about past government wrongdoings, it fell far short of the apology demanded by generations of Chinese Canadians. The Ontario Coalition of Head Tax Payers and Families lobbied the Conservative Party to stop the passage of Bill C-333. The Conservatives exercised a procedural prerogative and switched the order of Bill C-333 with Bill C-331, a bill to recognize past wrongs against Ukrainian Canadians during wartime, causing Bill C-333 to die when Prime Minister Martin's Liberals lost a motion of non-confidence and parliament was dissolved on November 28, 2005. 2006: federal campaign and election As they had done while campaigning for the federal election in 2004, the New Democratic Party and Bloc Québécois stated, during the leadup to the January 2006 election, their support for an apology and redress for the head tax. Similarly, on December 8, 2005, Conservative Party leader Stephen Harper released a press statement expressing