Evidence of meeting #18 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 gillani.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
I think Mr. Holder was raising his hand.
Would you like to ask a question? You've got about a minute and a half.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Ed Holder Conservative London West, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
And thank you, sir, for attending.
We like to say, some of us here on this committee, myself included, that we'd been business people before being in politics, presumably because that gives us some insight or wisdom. I'm living proof that this is not necessarily the case, but I need to ask you a couple of questions.
You've gone on at some length about the qualities that Mr. Jaffer and Mr. Gillani demonstrated, which suggests to me, certainly from what you've said, that as it relates to Mr. Jaffer, he didn't even know how business works. But if Mr. Jaffer was so bad, why would you provide confidential corporate information to him to allow him to put a presentation forward?
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
4:05 p.m.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
I have five partners in Green Right. Green Rite Solutions has five partners. As you can see here, Wright Tech is me. The invention is me. The technology is me. But the other is a financial, as we said here, arm to go and find money and own and operate facilities.
Say we go to a corporation or a municipality. Our sales pitch is simple: we say—
4:05 p.m.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
We say we have a solution to your problem and we have the money to pay for it, and they like that. So we come in, and what we do is we put together an unsolicited proposal to build the facility with our money and charge them a tipping fee, usually the same as they are currently paying or less for a straight-line twenty years, best date and time, and that's what we do.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
May 26th, 2010 / 4:05 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wright, for being here.
I might say, as well as Mr. Warkentin, that you seem like a forthright, honest, nice man, with an interesting business, and I'm sorry you're dragged into this, but we do appreciate your being here.
It seems like Mr. Glémaud was acting on your behalf beyond what you knew about. I have some e-mails here actually where he was negotiating with the minister's office about your proposal, and they were asking specific questions and he was giving very detailed answers.
One of them is the minister wanted to know, “Have the 11 municipal sites already agreed, and which are they?”, because Mr. Glémaud was saying there were 11 more cities that were on board with this. Mr. Glémaud answered that the Regional Municipality of Whistler agreed to expand their facility--you've mentioned this--and also that the GVRD, the Greater Vancouver Regional District, is willing to go ahead when the funding is available, as well as the City of Victoria, Powell River, B.C., Calgary, Alberta, the City of Guelph, the Region of Waterloo, Northumberland, Ontario, Quinte West, and the City of Welland.
Did all of those cities agree to—
4:05 p.m.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
They were cities that required attention. They had a waste problem with bio-solids, and we could go in and do this, and we had funding. That's what it was.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
His language is:
The following are the municipal sites that the technology has been introduced to and are willing to go ahead if funding is available.
Would that be overstating the situation?
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
He's representing your company in a fairly aggressive way.
One of the other questions the minister had is, “Could you tell me if and how the company separates organic from non-organic wastes in the municipal sites?” And he goes on to quite a detailed answer.
4:05 p.m.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
That question was asked. He did ask that of someone. He did get it from one of our engineers.
