Tony Clement repudiates his friend’s understanding of how government works.

Tony Clement said a Toronto-based media consultant he recommended for a municipal job in his riding did not know what he was talking about when he said infrastructure projects were being approved directly by Cabinet.

“That’s false and ridiculous,” Clement, the treasury board president, said Tuesday when asked about what Vern Freedlander, vice-president of production at X2O Media Inc. told Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty in a December 29, 2008 email. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”