Evidence of meeting #51 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was conservative.
A recording is available from Parliament.
As an Individual
In my six weeks at the department, I sent out a sum total of one letter. It is the letter that you have in front of you.
I have to admit that if I had known that we stocked so many different letterheads, I would have paid closer attention to the letter going out.
I'm not a letter-writing person. I'm more of a text and BBM person, but I don't know...I can't tell you whether it's--
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
In other words, during your six weeks at the office, all you managed to do is send out a letter, the one we are talking about today. That is not a coincidence.
In your statement, you said that you did draft this letter, but that you asked your administrative assistant to revise it and to print a copy addressed to each member... So, your assistant revised the letter you drafted, correct?
As an Individual
Yes. I come from a law firm background, and it's fairly common. It was fairly common in my previous life to send a--
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
I want to know whether it was indeed your assistant who revised this letter. She did not question the fact that she had to revise a partisan letter like this one in the Minister's office, during office hours. She did not bat an eyelid and did not let you know that this was wrong.
As an Individual
I missed that entire question. I'm sorry; I apologize.
I think the question was whether my administrative assistant--
As an Individual
I believe she edited the letter. I couldn't remember what she added to it or what she subtracted, but I sent a couple of, I think, sentences to her, and she edited it.
Bloc
Carole Freeman Bloc Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC
I am not so much concerned about the changes she might have made to your letter. Did she not find it strange or out of the ordinary to do work related to partisan activities during office hours, in the Minister's office? Did she not call you out and say you shouldn't be doing that? She never said anything about it to you? You said that you had just begun working at the office. You had only been there for six weeks. She did not tell you that what you were doing was out of the ordinary. Did it seem to her completely normal to do something like that?
Liberal
As an Individual
I was the newest member of the minister's staff. My assistant was the second-newest member of the minister's staff. You may want to ask the minister about these things, but I didn't have a conversation with her about the letter, other than what I've spoken about.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Madame Freeman.
We're now going to go to Mr. Siksay. You have seven minutes.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for being here, Mr. Nejatian. I appreciate the full apology that you've offered the committee and Canadians for what happened in this case. It doesn't mean that I don't have questions for you, but I appreciate that you've been so straightforward on that point.
Have you ever worked for the Conservative Party in a paid position, Mr. Nejatian?
As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
I have never worked for the Conservative Party of Canada in a paid position.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
But you have been a volunteer and a candidate. Have you had a party position at all, in your past?
As an Individual
I was the president of the Ontario PC Campus Association. It's an elected volunteer position. I have to admit that I don't know if the position still exists, but at the time it was a position that did campus recruitment for the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Have you ever worked on the Hill in another position or at Queen's Park in another position?
As an Individual
I've never worked at Queen's Park. The last time I worked on the Hill was as an intern for Minister Kenney, back when he was a member of the Canadian Alliance. I believe it would have been 2002.
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
But you never had a paid position working for a member of Parliament?
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Anyway, that's off to the side. Sorry about that.
Have you ever worked for the public service of Canada in any position?
NDP
Bill Siksay NDP Burnaby—Douglas, BC
Did you have a written job description for your position as director of multiculturalism for the minister?
As an Individual
I got a letter offering me the job. It did not have a job description.