Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 12th, 2008

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Alford, for joining us today.

I have a number of questions, so I'll go relatively quickly. So I apologize for the expediency with which I'm trying to do this.

As I'm sure you're aware, Mr. Schreiber has alleged that at some point in late 1992 or 1993, Mr. Fred Doucet asked him to arrange for cash to be sent through GCI to a supposed lawyer of Mr. Mulroney's in Geneva, Switzerland.

Did you ever receive such a request from Mr. Doucet personally, for a cash--

[Greg Alford]

No.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

No. Okay, thank you.

I'd like to clarify the timing and your involvement, because you moved from one project to the other. On the Bear Head issue, when you were at GCI, how much of your time was devoted to lobbying for Bear Head, or did that start after you left GCI?

[Greg Alford]

My commitment to Bear Head Industries started, I guess, at GCI. Yes, Bear Head was created while I was still working at GCI, and I suppose it was 25% of my time, 20% to 25% of my time.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

As clarification of what you said earlier, you said your direct report...I think your answer to the question was to Europe or Germany, when you worked for Thyssen or the Bear Head project, but Mr. Schreiber was the president of the Canadian arm of Thyssen, I think you said.

So you did not report directly to Mr. Schreiber. You bypassed him and went to Germany. Is that correct?

[Greg Alford]

My boss was in Germany, but Mr. Schreiber was the chairman appointed by Thyssen for the Bear Head project. So product development and all of the corporate structures were administered and reported to Germany on a formal basis, and Mr. Schreiber played a role as a chairman and an official representative of the project.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

GCI started lobbying for the Cape Breton Bear Head proposal, as you previously mentioned. Can you tell me when that actually started and when it stopped? Do you have any sense of that?

[Greg Alford]

The Bear Head project came from about 1985. Thyssen was one of the German companies to which the Canadian government campaigned for foreign investment, promoting the merits of investing in Canada. Thyssen had an interest at that time, as I understood it, in expanding their manufacturing in North America. The presentations by the Canadian government sounded very interesting to them.

The defence division was tracking the Canadian military's long-term project to acquire new vehicles, so Thyssen came to explore whether there was any possibility that they could bid on a Canadian project and have a chance of winning, because they recognized the domestic manufacturer already in place.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but can you recall when you were with Bear Head, Thyssen, whether you ended the relationship of that organization with GCI on lobbying for the Bear Head project at a certain point? Do you know when that happened?

[Greg Alford]

The relationship didn't end, but Thyssen took over its own representation in Ottawa by establishing a permanent office. We had professional salespeople with military backgrounds, as well as environmental engineers who came over for the various projects that were merging. My assignment was to come on staff and expand that office.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Mr. Mulroney, supported by Mr. Spector, who saw us last week, actually axed the Bear Head project at the end of 1990, I think. As VP of the Bear Head project, were you aware of that at the time? When did you roll that up? Did you understand what it meant that the Progressive Conservative government at the time had ended the project?

It went from Cape Breton. Then there was an issue of going to Montreal. When did that start to take a lobbying effort?

[Greg Alford]

On the event you refer to in 1990, the government asked Thyssen to find a way to proceed with its project in the absence of any formal participation in Canadian procurement. So essentially they were asking Thyssen to build a factory to manufacture in Canada for export.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

So there would be no domestic customer.

[Greg Alford]

Yes. Thyssen had always said that if they could win and secure a portion of the Canadian requirement, they would proceed to invest independently in the manufacturing facility. A proposal was invited to describe how they might do it in the absence of that, where they would transfer technology, build the plant, and bring in manufacturing for one of their U.S. or European contracts to Canada without any Canadian business. We put that forward and it was declined.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

The reason this committee is talking about this is to see if there is any evidence...to review the matters relating to the Mulroney Airbus settlement, which was settled by the previous Liberal government with the former Prime Minister Mulroney.

One of my basic questions is, do you have any evidence for this committee regarding any wrongdoing by any public official regarding the Bear Head project?

[Greg Alford]

No.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I have some questions that were brought forward by my friend.... We've heard about this pasta business--I can't even say the name of the company you created--Spaghettismo. What involvement did Prime Minister Mulroney actually have in this, and what involvement did Mr. Schreiber have in this?

[Greg Alford]

The company was Mr. Schreiber's. It was based on a piece of technology that he had developed and commercialized, or caused to be commercialized. It was quite a revolutionary cooking device that achieved very successful and rapid cooking of pasta, which is a difficult thing to do in the culinary world, in a restaurant environment. It cooked it very precisely and very quickly. Mr. Schreiber recognized its potential and commercialized it and commenced bringing it to Canada.

His vision was that it had tremendous potential to be a device that made pasta a more successful product. It's already a successful product, but a difficult product to do quickly. His vision was that it was the key to unlocking pasta in the food service industry in the casual and quick-service category, which is the largest.

It would use a lot of pasta, which is a wheat product. That's why it had a lot of interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you very much.

Very quickly, Mr. Alford, as a senior vice-president and former president of GCI, you would be very familiar with the financial statements of GCI, is that correct?

[Greg Alford]

No. Because it was a partnership, the partners handled all of the financial statements. I was an employee of GCI.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Are you aware of GCI's having any revenue sources from Europe?

[Greg Alford]

Well, we spoke of Thyssen being a client. There were a few clients in the list, I suppose, that were European.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Were there transfers from bank accounts in Liechtenstein?

[Greg Alford]

I have no knowledge of that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Who would have knowledge of that?