Government Operations Committee on Nov. 18th, 2010

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses.

Like my Liberal colleague, I think we should preface the remarks by saying that nobody is here to blame the people around this table for anything. Our questions or any rancour should really be directed at the political masters that we believe exceeded common sense in their spending. There's nothing new about political pork-barrelling or some minister featherbedding his own riding. But this really.... Frankly, we've never seen such a flagrant abuse of that. This legacy fund you talk about has nothing to do with a legacy for the G-8; it seems like a legacy to the minister. You did everything but build a statue to Tony Clement in his riding here.

It's pure political pork-barrelling, and you should understand, as taxpayers, why we're dumbfounded at some of these hare-brained ideas. Again, it's nothing new, but we've never seen it on such a grand scale. Everybody remembers l'Auberge Grand-Mère in Jean Chrétien's own riding, and people were taken aback. It became Shawinigate. But we've never seen this kind of disregard.

The only thing we can surmise is that they were trying to sandbag around a guy who won his seat by 46 votes, and they needed to wring every ounce of juice out of this G-8 summit to try to sprinkle government's grand largesse all over the region. That has nothing to do with the G-8.

As far as specific questions go, why did this infrastructure money—the $45.7 million funding 17 park, public space, and road improvements—come out of the G-8 infrastructure fund and not out of the Building Canada fund or Canada's economic action plan, or those other programs that were set up specifically for that type of project in a person's riding?

[Taki Sarantakis, Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Communications Branch, Infrastructure Canada]

In budget 2009, the government decided to dedicate $50 million specifically for this purpose. So all the other funds you mentioned were also available to the region, but the government wanted to provide a legacy to the area for the G-8.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Could you tell us briefly how much Building Canada fund money and how much economic action plan money went into Tony Clement's riding above and beyond the $50-million special fund?

[Taki Sarantakis]

I cannot right now, but we could get that information back to you.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That would be very useful to know.

We don't even know where to start here, frankly. It just seems to us to be the most wild, irresponsible, cavalier, and offensive scattering of money that we've seen. What it boils down to is that they either think we're really dumb or they don't care what we think about them. Any objective outsider looking at this couldn't help but determine that this has nothing to do with Huntsville.

Again, it's hard to know how to question you, because you were simply implementing the directives from your political masters. But beautifying downtown or streetscaping and so on is one thing when it's in Huntsville, where we may in fact have G-8 visitors, but the rest of Muskoka is already beautiful. We don't need to brand it as a beautiful place.

Let me ask another specific question. How did we give a $1.3-million sole-source contract to Bell? Whose department would that have been? Our notes show us that Bell Canada got a $1.3-million telecommunications contract from Public Works. How did that go through with no competitive tendering process?

[Renée Jolicoeur]

I think it would be PWGSC.

[Sandra Young, Acting Regional Director General, Ontario Region, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

In that case, we had our information technology services group look at the networks available in the area, and given the infrastructure that was there, Bell used the existing infrastructure to provide those services. Given the short timeline, there was no other infrastructure available or company that could have put one in place in time for the G-8. So that's why it was Bell Canada.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So Bell's the only one that had adequate coverage in that rural region?

[Sandra Young]

Yes, at the time.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I see. Can I ask you again then, in July 2009 Infrastructure Canada put out a press release, “New Projects to receive G-8 Infrastructure Funding”. In that press release you said the government stated the G-8 legacy infrastructure fund would generate long-term and significant economic spinoffs for the Parry Sound--Muskoka region. What do you mean by long-term significant economic spinoffs to fixing a toilet in Parry Sound? I mean, can you really defend what you're saying in your press release?

[Bryce Conrad]

I don't believe the press release was an Infrastructure Canada one, but--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes, Infrastructure Canada, July 16, 2009.

[Bryce Conrad]

Well, I can still answer your question in that regard.

It's very clear if you do this.... Again, going back to the idea that this is a legacy to the region, significant amounts of investments were made to improve the local tourism, the visual image of the region. We also invested significantly in the North Bay airport, the G-8 centre. All of these projects had immediate economic impacts. We did not track jobs created or anything of that nature.

But these projects were all fully completed. People did work on these projects to get them done, and the view is that they will provide a lasting economic benefit to the region.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, if they were just economic action plan projects, which essentially are make-work projects to create local jobs, that would be one thing. But I presume--and it will be interesting to find out--there were also economic action plan projects going on in that riding. I'd be very surprised if Muskoka didn't get their fair share of the economic action plan money. Were you putting up those economic action plan signs with each one of these legacy fund projects?

[Taki Sarantakis]

Yes, we were. The goal of them was somewhat similar, in that they had to be constructed in a very quick period. In fact, a lot of the G-8 legacy fund projects had to be finished before the current infrastructure stimulus fund deadline.

Again, in budget 2009 the government decided to basically brand all of its infrastructure investments with one common signage or one common brand. So the decision was taken to apply that to the G-8 as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

You have 20 seconds.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Well, we just view this as hog-troughing of the highest order, and Tony Clement has a lot to answer for, frankly. He won by 46 votes and started sandbagging--

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

It was 20,000 votes.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

So, 20,000 votes the last time, but the first time, 46.

I have no other questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Martin.

Mr. Reagan, five minutes.

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'm sorry Mr. Warkentin is not here, because it may be his intention to wait for these details in relation to the $100 million of spending for the Ontario Provincial Police, but it's not our intention. After all, this committee did....

Oh, there he is. Pardon me. He was here and is sitting in the back.

The committee did pass an order several months ago requiring all this information to be provided to the committee. In relation to this, it seems that every other department has made their best efforts to get the information and the details to us--the details of the spending associated with the G-8, G-20 summits--and we haven't seen it in relation to this funding.

So I have a question for Mr. Potter. Why has your department so patently failed?

[Mark Potter]

Thank you for the question.

I think throughout the process, particularly the supplementary estimates process, the department and the government have been very transparent in providing to Parliament information with respect to the cost estimates associated with the various provincial and municipal security partners that were providing support to the RCMP for this event.

As you can appreciate, the jurisdictional responsibilities of, as you mentioned, the OPP are such that they are jurisdictionally responsible for the Huntsville area. They also have responsibilities with respect to the corridor between Huntsville and Toronto. So they were a key partner.

In light of their jurisdictional responsibilities and the limited resources of the RCMP, they received--and will receive--considerable funding based on the estimates they've provided once they've provided final invoices that are then audited and can be assessed with respect to their eligibility in terms of the policy--

[Geoff Regan, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you.

It's nearly six months now since the date of the summits, and we're talking about $100 million. That's more than 10% of the supposed total costs for these two summits and we still are waiting for this. And you're telling us we should wait until December 1, which just happens to be two days after the by-election in Vaughan, where the former commissioner of the OPP, Julian Fantino, is the Conservative candidate. Did the minister or other Conservatives instruct you to help them cover up this information until after that byelection?

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Point of order.

[Geoff Reagan]

You can answer the question yes or no. It's quite straightforward.