Evidence of meeting #13 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was company.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Can you talk about what your understanding was from this? Was it contingency fees, success, whatever...?
3:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
Typically when these types of agreements are used in my industry, they're standard when you want to introduce one party to another and don't want to be circumvented by the party that's looking to get funded. So you put an agreement like this together so that you can ensure that at the time something gets tabled, because eventually the funder is going to dictate the terms of the deal.
3:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
Inevitably, it's who is putting up the money who is going to decide. So on that basis we use these types of agreements, finder's fee agreements, to ensure that when that happens they can't simply circumvent us and do a deal directly with the funder.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Right.
So it's a kind of.... You used term “finder's fee agreements”.
3:40 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
I use the term “finder's fee”, and so does everybody else in my industry.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
So they're success fees or whatever. Okay.
I'm going to talk about Green Rite, because you mentioned Green Rite Solutions. It was a client of yours.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Did you discuss Green Rite with Mr. Jaffer? And Madam Guergis, I think, was at a dinner with you.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
That dinner was completely social. There was not one iota of business spoken at that dinner. It was the first time....
You know, if you meet somebody for the first time at a dinner, on a social basis--
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
--everybody is couples, there are three couples there, it's completely social. There was no business spoken whatsoever.
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
But as far as Green Rite is concerned, again, Green Rite was brought to me by a gentleman who was at one of the dinners at Harbour Sixty. I immediately signed a finder's fee agreement, which is what I do with anybody to make sure they don't circumvent me, and I introduced Green Rite to Mr. Jaffer and Mr. Glémaud.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
It just seems.... Within a couple of days of your dinner, Madam Guergis wrote a letter on behalf of the same company.
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
Yes. I did not know about that letter.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
I did not know anything about that letter.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
So you didn't discuss it. It wasn't agreed to.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
It was not part of your strategy or anything.
3:45 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, International Strategic Investments
I had no idea that letter was written. It was news to me, and I found out about it when I saw it in the paper.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Siobhan Coady Liberal St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL
Around about that same time, and discussing, again, Green Rite, that was submitted to government for some funding through Mr. Jean, the parliamentary secretary to Mr. Baird.