Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 21st, 2019

[Kristina Verner]

No, Mr. Chair, this was actually 159 days. The first phase of that submission was only the six weeks that was referred to, but the entire process was 159 days. That is a fact on our records. It's the second-longest RFP process that we have ever run as a corporation.

With regard to any element—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Did you challenge the Auditor General on that? I mean, it's in all the papers. I just think that if the Auditor General doesn't know what she's talking about, you should have been correcting the record.

[Kristina Verner]

I wouldn't say the Auditor General does not know what she's talking about.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay. Okay.

[Kristina Verner]

Yes. She and her staff were extraordinarily competent when they worked with Waterfront Toronto. We have no inkling of anything otherwise. But I also want to touch upon the preferential treatment component of it. The Auditor General pointed to a number of different pieces of information that we shared with a variety of different individuals, different companies, through the market sounding process. Sidewalk Labs was well into that market sounding process of the 50 plus companies that we spoke to. The information that she had pointed to were exhibits that were in the flood protection due diligence report, which was publicly available. There were publicly available websites, including links to the economic development site of the City of Toronto—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, you did give information to others, but she said you gave more and preferential treatment to them. That was what she said.

[Kristina Verner]

That was her interpretation.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

It was her interpretation. Okay.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

We're at time.

I believe there is one more question from Mr. Erskine-Smith.

Go ahead.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We had Taylor Owen before us, talking about social media platforms and regulating social media platforms. He mentioned that the monetization model of personal information is one of the causes of some of the negative externalities we see with respect to social media and the massive collection of personal information. Now this, you've said, as I understand it, is not a traditional monetization model using personal information. That accords with what I've read in the documents.

So this isn't a traditional Alphabet/Google way of making money; they are a straight-up development company in this proposal?

[Kristina Verner]

I wouldn't say they're a straight-up development company. There are actually three approaches to revenue streams that they looked at early on. We're not sure where that will fit within their overall business proposal to us. There was the real estate component, an infrastructure component and then the intellectual property component. We don't know how that blends out and mixes out, but it isn't the traditional Google play.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Those are questions for them, not for you, though.

[Kristina Verner]

Right.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

I'm not sure if any colleagues of mine have additional questions, but that's all for me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

I have one with Mr. Vaughan. That's not one speaking slot, that's one question. and one question for you, Charlie.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I guess that's the question I want to ask: Are we going for another full round? I'm happy not to go, but if we're going to continue with questions—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

The understanding was that this would be the last. There's a target time we aim for on Thursdays.

Mr. Erskine-Smith, did you want to speak to that?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Sorry; I thought it was five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Yes, we can split up to five minutes. That's fine.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

We can split it. So if Charlie wants to take a question—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

No, I'm happy.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

One last five minutes: I think that's easy to manage.

Who would like to go first?

Mr. Vaughan, go ahead. The remainder of the time is four minutes, I believe.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

That's fine.

So consultation was actually done before the proposal was received.

[Meg Davis]

That's correct. It's called market sounding and it's a very common practice.