Evidence of meeting #44 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was organization.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Okay. And then we had some per diems for Mr. Gauthier, which were added.
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
When I'm talking about the lawyers, I'm talking the main cost of the lawyers, related to the action in court.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
I understand that. I'm just trying to get a ballpark figure, because we have a budget of $9 million, and we're talking about getting close to $1 million, easily.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
We had the board members in front of this committee, and at the time we were led to believe they were engaged in due diligence, particularly with SIRCO, around concerns around theft, around terrorism—some very serious charges—conflict of interest, etc.
I read your letter carefully. I'm looking through these documents. When I look at what was asserted and the rationale by Mr. Gauthier and Mr. Braun and others to engage in these contracts, I'm seeing that.... First, from your own read of the situation and your meetings with SIRCO, I don't see any of the allegations having stuck at all. What I see here is that when it comes to the case of the collective agreement, it was legally done. Right? You just said that.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
There was this Durban 2 conspiracy. That's a dud, from what you're showing in the document here. I'll say it's a dud. You can say there was nothing there.
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
What I did is I'm giving you all the facts—
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
So there was no funding of terrorist organizations, according to what we have in SIRCO's report.
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
The SIRCO report is mainly about the dismissal of the three directors.
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
The SIRCO report is about governance issues. The Deloitte report is about government—
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
That's why I want to get at this, because everything that SIRCO was looking at—there's conspiracy around working and having a relationship with terrorists—they didn't find anything. You submitted to the police, and they didn't find anything. Right?
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
Right. Regarding the Cairo thing, if I can explain--
4:10 p.m.
NDP
4:10 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
The Cairo thing was the fact I gave that to the RCMP, and they told me they're not going to pursue the inquiry—
4:15 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
—except they are going to give the information to the security service.
4:15 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
So the question is, did the previous interim president pursue it with the RCMP, this whole concern that they had, or was it just with SIRCO?
4:15 p.m.
President, Rights and Democracy
What I understand and what I was told on many, many occasions and from documents I've seen, the former president concentrated his efforts.... The aim was that SIRCO would serve for the firing of the three directors, and that he put an end to SIRCO's mandate. What I did when I arrived, because there were so many e-mails all around, I went and I saw SIRCO and I said, Do you have some other thing? Do you have something problematic that I should be aware of? Tell me and I will look at it. In fact, that's what he did and that's what's in the letter of—
4:15 p.m.
NDP