Government Operations Committee on June 17th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

I call the meeting to order.

Committee members, we have Mr. Jaffer before us.

Mr. Jaffer, the committee was not very pleased with your no-show. It feels that you have shown contempt for the committee. As a previous member of Parliament, you should know that when summons are issued, you have to respond. I think I speak for all committee members in showing our displeasure. We hope that this time your testimony will be totally clear so that we do not have to go through this performance again.

With that, I know that you have some opening remarks. I will give you five to seven minutes to do your opening statements.

[Rahim Jaffer, Green Power Generation Corporation]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to address your opening remarks right away. I regret that I was unable to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates yesterday. As I explained to the clerk of the committee, I meant no disrespect to the committee or its process.

Helena and I have been trying to have a child for some time, and she had just completed the first trimester of a high-risk pregnancy. It had not helped that she had been under considerable stress as a result of her treatment by the Prime Minister and others. Despite her doctor's order to stop work, Helena insisted on continuing with many of her duties as an elected member of Parliament. Yesterday I was with my wife, as I should have been, when tests were conducted to ascertain the health of our baby. I'm relieved to report that the test results were good and there are no significant concerns about our baby's health. Needless to say, Helena and I were both pleased by this medical news.

I know that there were other demands on my time yesterday, but I truly believed that the right place for me was beside my wife while she was undergoing these tests and when she received the results. I expect that my wife's colleagues in the House and on the government operations committee would have done the same thing.

With that being said, I know that my lawyer did consult with the clerk on a number of dates once we found out that the 16th was not available to us. I would like to thank the committee for their understanding by accommodating me today, with this special meeting.

I'd like to clarify some points arising from my April 21 appearance. Prior to accepting the committee's invitation to answer questions, I was advised by my lawyer to take some time to review e-mails, documents, and Green Power Generation files concerning the issues about which I had been invited. He encouraged me to do so, so that the information I provided would be complete and accurate.

I ignored the advice. I was so upset about the treatment of my wife by the Prime Minister and other opinion leaders that I felt I should fix the situation as soon as possible. I was certain that if I just came and answered questions, I could refute the unfair allegations against my wife.

I know now that I was wrong. I inadvertently ended up providing incomplete information to the committee about a couple of important things, and I really regret that. It has embarrassed me. I apologize to the committee.

Obviously I knew that there would be a paper trail and an e-mail trail of everything I did at GPG. My lawyer told me to take a couple of weeks to find that material and read it over before I came. But I was in a hurry to get to the committee and to help my wife by explaining that we weren't doing anything wrong. Unfortunately, that message got completely scrambled and lost because I didn't have my facts straight about several issues.

For example, I had forgotten what was on my personal website, since I didn't use it for GPG business. I ended up first denying, then admitting, that something was there that was actually there...or not there that was actually there. Had I just prepared a little more carefully for this appearance, I would not have made that or similar mistakes.

I also was unprepared for the aggressive and nasty tone of some of the questioning at the committee. I took no money, government or otherwise. I used no influence. I traded no favours and I breached no trust. I was stunned that I could be accused of all of that without a shred of evidence. I was appalled that it happened here at committee.

I think my answers reflected how confused and shocked I was by the content and tenor of the questioning. While I have made mistakes in my life, I've always taken responsibility for them. I'm appalled and upset that anyone would so casually attack my character.

On my last appearance, I was asked why my wife wrote a letter on behalf of Jim Wright. I acknowledged that she should not have been promoting Jim Wright's business in her personal capacity if GPG was still doing business with him. As you know, Jim Wright is one of my wife's constituents. He contacted her office and asked her for assistance.

At the time, she questioned me about the business relationship with him. I told her that we were not doing any business with him and had no prospect of doing so in the future. I was well aware of the difficulties it would cause my wife if there was any potential conflict of interest. I wouldn't have told her it was appropriate to send a routine letter if I thought there was a chance of it causing a problem for anyone.

I was unaware that Patrick was still trying to initiate something that would involve the use of Jim Wright's company's technology.

This was in September. As most people are aware, I had a personally challenging fall. I wasn't as involved in my business as I should have been for a number of months. My partner, Patrick, carried most of the business activities during this period. When I became more involved with the company business again, nothing was happening with Jim Wright. There was nothing that would have caused me to re-address the issue with my wife. Only in April of this year, when the Toronto Star series was published, did I turn my mind to the fact that my wife had written a letter regarding Jim Wright.

It was my responsibility to keep up to speed with Patrick's activity, in this case an e-mail exchange regarding Jim Wright's company during September. I should have checked more thoroughly before answering Helena's question and before assuring her that there was no impediment to her writing this letter of introduction on Jim Wright's behalf. I regret not doing so, but it was an inadvertent mistake. It was obviously not intended to engage Helena in wrongdoing, since I was keenly aware that my business relationships and her correspondence were presumptively public matters.

Although it is not clear to me why this committee is concerned with this issue, I want to respond to questions that have been raised concerning the use of a government BlackBerry after the 2008 election. As members of the committee know, every MP is issued four wireless devices for distribution at their discretion. Based on my experiences, many MPs distribute a wireless device to their spouse. Helena decided that I could keep my old MP's BlackBerry, transfer it to her account, enable it from her system, and assign it as one of her four on her operating budget. The reason she did this was to enable me to keep track of her schedule and communicate regularly with her staff. As a cabinet minister, she was very busy and her schedule was constantly in flux. By having a BlackBerry affiliated with her office system, I had her schedule accessible and automatically updated. There are dozens of MP and cabinet minister spouses who have had government-issued wireless devices for similar purposes.

Further, in the 14 months I have had this device from Helena's allocation, I've sent thousands and thousands of e-mails from my business account and personal account at home, but I acknowledge that there may have been a few occasions on which I sent e-mails others sent to me or I replied on this government-issued wireless. This would have been inadvertent.

In my last appearance before the committee I was asked about Helena's office for my personal business purposes. It is not true that I used her office for my personal business purposes. I did use her office briefly after the election, as I was moving my files and other material out of my Parliament Hill office. There was a very short window after the election, and I was unable to clean out my office before I needed to vacate it. In any case, after the cleanout was complete, which was about a month later, I used her office as a point to meet up with people a few times. I met a few people at her office so we could go for lunch; after we met there, we left. We conducted no business in the office.

I met Mr. Wenger once in relation to a personal matter, which he wanted to discuss with me. I believe that every other person I may have met in my wife's office would have been registered on the visitor's log through security, and this log is available should anyone wish to consult it. I had my own office for conducting business at that time and had no need to use my wife's office, and I did not use it for that purpose.

Madam Chair, that's really all I have to clarify at this point. I'd like to go straight to the questions so we can fully maximize on the opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

Mr. Jaffer, just before I start the questioning, your lawyer stated that you had documents, and I want to clarify that it was only one document that you had sent to the clerk. Is that correct?

[Rahim Jaffer]

That's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Okay. And it is in translation.

Thank you.

We'll start the first round of questions with Ms. Coady for eight minutes.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you for appearing today. I guess congratulations are in order for the impending birth of your child.

I could spend probably all day reviewing the inaccuracies of your April testimony, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to go straight to some questions, if I may, Mr. Jaffer, and I'd appreciate your fullness in your reply and your accuracy in your reply. We don't want to have to come back again, and we could during the summer, if need be.

It's clear that you had access to government, including several senior ministers in this government. When you came back here in April, you talked about being friends with a lot of your former colleagues. I guess it was because of your previous role as chair of caucus. You talked about being friends, and we've had some discussions about being friends, but do you think you had access because of your friendship or because of your wife's position as cabinet minister?

[Rahim Jaffer]

I appreciate the question, Madam Coady. I'm going to do my best, as I did try in April, to help the committee with its work. That's my intention in being here.

I think after almost 12 years of being an MP—and many of you will find this out after you've served a long period of time and you move on to new work, whatever that might be after you leave here—your social network is still based very much on the work you did while you were an MP. In particular because I was married to Helena—we got married the day after the election—and she was working out of Ottawa, and we made our home in Ottawa, it was very difficult to distance myself from this social network. If I had moved back to Alberta, I maybe wouldn't have kept in touch as regularly.

You're asking about special access?

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm not asking about your social network at all actually. You did have access to government. We know that. That's an established fact. You had access to five different departments on various and sundry projects.

Would you say it was because of your friendships at the time that you felt you could call--and you're talking about having that social interaction, that friendship--or do you think it was because your wife was a cabinet minister? Or was it both?

[Rahim Jaffer]

All the people I've ever talked to are people I knew on a personal basis.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It was on the basis of friendship.

[Rahim Jaffer]

Absolutely.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Okay, great.

I guess my concern--and I've raised this in the media before--is that we know you had access to five different departments. You're talking about friendship. I think some of your colleagues talked about being your friend. As a matter of fact, one of the ministers even talked about a personal phone call on that.

My concern is that not every Canadian has that kind of access. Do you think every Canadian has that kind of access to government?

[Rahim Jaffer]

Well, yes, I would argue, Madam Coady, that although there were people I knew from the time I worked as an MP, or people who I had gotten to know in these various offices, I would access any department--you mentioned five different departments--just as any Canadian would, by picking up the phone and calling it.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

But not everyone can get a cabinet minister or his senior official to have a look at his proposal and move it through. I'm talking about that kind of access. Being able to call up a government department and going through the proper channels are two different things. You clearly had kind of a special relationship.

My concern is that Canadians in general.... I was in business before I became a member of Parliament, and I certainly didn't enjoy that kind of access.

[Rahim Jaffer]

Well, I think as I recollect, most of my relationships were personal. Any of the evidence that has been brought to the committee's attention based on any correspondence I may have had with ministers, in particular, was often just on a friendly basis. It was to gather information.

Often, when I was looking for more pertinent information, I would deal directly with people other than the ministers, people within the departments.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

They're pretty senior.

I'm going to move on. As you know, we have only eight minutes.

Your company signed a contract with Nazim Gillani. We know that. We've seen that. It stated that you had “valuable connections to and with...the government of Canada and various departments [and] ministries...for ...purposes of providing participatory and non-participatory government funding.”

The same contract stated that you would be compensated with a finder's or advisory fee, and if you recall, Mr. Glémaud, in his testimony, said that if the government had expressed any interest in any of these proposals, you would have gone back to your clients and discussed next steps. That was what he said during testimony.

We now know there was a signed contract with Mr. Gillani that talked about a finder's or advisory fee. How did you anticipate being compensated by your clients? We know about the finder's fee. So if the government had said this proposal looked good and you started negotiations, how would that have gone? Could you describe what you had anticipated as your business model?

[Rahim Jaffer]

I appreciate the question, and I'd be happy to.

Before I answer that specifically, I just have to back up in order to clarify this particular agreement. As you know, and as I said in my opening remarks, unfortunately, during most of September, October, and November, I was not actively involved with my business activity.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Jaffer, I don't want to go down that road of having to show you timelines and numerous pieces of correspondence between you and Mr. Gillani. I think we should acknowledge there was a contract between the two of you and move to next steps. We have lots of timelines that show your engagements, so we'd appreciate you going through--

[Rahim Jaffer]

I haven't reviewed the material that Mr. Gillani has sent in. If you would be so kind as to provide it for me, maybe I could review it and then respond to your question more fully.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'd appreciate your response to my question.

[Rahim Jaffer]

It was an oversight on the part of my partner, during his last appearance, when he said there was no contract in place. Unfortunately, that was wrong information.

The contract was in place. It was one I was not involved in designing. During the time I was removed from the company, I trusted Mr. Glémaud, as a lawyer, to design the agreement on conducting our business operations according to the law. I believe it was Mr. Gillani in particular who, during the committee, explained that for any particular contract, any further business agreement that would come out it--and this is what I recollect--would have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So it would be like a contingency fee. If this happened, then you would go back and say that you would take this on a contingency.

[Rahim Jaffer]

No, that was not my understanding, because contingency fees—

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

He did have a copy of that contract. We understood—

[Rahim Jaffer]

I understand, but my understanding of the intent was that it was going to be for us. That was for Mr. Gillani to collect finder's fees. It's not something we would be allowed to do on government funds.