Evidence of meeting #141 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was waterfront.
A video is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to all of you for attending today.
I'm sure you'll forgive those in the GTA and the city of Toronto who have expressed skepticism and concern about the gradual evolution and the gradual revelations of the changing aspects of this project. It's somewhat like the Churchillian notion of “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”
I guess my first question, to start at the beginning, is, when did you realize that the original 12-acre Quayside project wasn't enough for your objectives?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
Let me be very clear. The original RFP that Waterfront Toronto issued mentioned not just Quayside but the broader eastern waterfront at least 20 times. It was right there from the very beginning.
Our response to the RFP, which I believe we delivered in June of 2017, mentioned the broader waterfront 200 times. The project development agreement that we signed with Waterfront Toronto talked about the broader waterfront and the need for scale in order to achieve Waterfront Toronto's ambitions for affordability, mobility, sustainability and inclusive economic opportunity.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Your business plan was always for a much larger project than that originally discussed in the RFP.
3:55 p.m.
Micah Lasher Head of Policy and Communications, Sidewalk Labs
If I may just reiterate, to Dan's point, the RFP specifically said that the partner would “[a]ssist in developing a viable and implementable model for sustainable transit along the eastern waterfront into the Port Lands.” The RFP said that the preferred partner would, quote, “[c]ontribute appropriate financial resources and/or solution components to support building and district level solutions for the eastern waterfront.”
Respectfully, I think it was pretty clear in the RFP.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
It didn't mention eventual development fees and shared tax revenues as property appreciated.
3:55 p.m.
Head of Policy and Communications, Sidewalk Labs
It did talk about, for example, a combination of government and private sector funding to support those initiatives. With respect, I think the plans that are currently contemplated are perfectly in line with what was in the RFP.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Mr. Doctoroff, you mentioned the seven-month RFP process. Whether or not that's the case, one competing bidder, I understand, told The Logic's David Skok that they thought the timeline was six weeks, and that there was no opportunity given to contemplate an extension.
The quote that's been offered is, “It was made very clear to us verbally that those were the deadlines on several occasions, and so asking for an extension seemed out of the question.” Why do you think they would have been left with that impression?
3:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
I can't speak to what the others were thinking, and I won't speculate about that. I do think that Waterfront Toronto had reached out in advance of the issue, so the RFP...I believe it was 52 separate parties. It was no mystery that the RFP was going to get issued.
I can only speak to what we did. What we did was that we assembled all of our forces and all of our resources and we worked around the clock for six weeks to assemble something that we were quite proud of. I will also point out that this was just the first round of the RFP process. We went through several additional rounds, all of which, by the way, were overseen by a fairness adviser, a respected associate chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court.
We put that same kind of effort into every stage of the process.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
The Ontario Auditor General had a number of questions about preferential treatment given to Sidewalk Toronto. Certainly, it has been raised again with regard to the fact—and to your point—that you have approval from Waterfront Toronto only to develop a plan. A plan has not been developed. Some have suggested that the RFP process should be opened again for these broader plans.
3:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
Let me just clarify. The Auditor General never suggests or uses the phrase “preferential treatment.”
3:55 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
She notes the fact that Sidewalk Labs received more information but drew no conclusions about whether we had such an advantage. She identifies no instance of information being given to Sidewalk Labs that wasn't available to others and notes that the information was provided to multiple bidders, including one of the shortlisted bidders.
We were actually, according to records from Waterfront Toronto, the 25th company that Waterfront Toronto met with as part of its market-sounding process, which began in February of 2016. Several of the companies that Waterfront Toronto met with, both before and after Sidewalk Labs, ended up responding to the RFP, based on my informal understanding from the marketplace of who responded, so—
4 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
But you can understand where someone reading the Auditor General's findings might see “preferential” as the package of advantage...?
4 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
I think it's pretty clear that the Auditor General did not find that, and I think it's also very clear that the Auditor General compared our RFP response to the others and found ours significantly more complete.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Kent Conservative Thornhill, ON
Earlier, you mentioned Sidewalk Toronto's willingness to comply with any regulations that exist today or, in the policy vacuum, exist in the future. I'm wondering, given your sibling's recent experience with significant fines from the European Union with regard to the management or non-management of privacy, whether you would still be interested in this project should—as this committee has recommended to the Liberal government—something along the lines of the EU's general data protection regulations be brought into place.
4 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Sidewalk Labs
We absolutely would be. As I said, our expectation is that the privacy regime—particularly for urban data—that we would hope to see implemented at Quayside and beyond will be even more rigorous.
4 p.m.
Conservative
4 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today and participating in our study.
Mr. Brodhead, you were with Infrastructure Canada before you went to Sidewalk Labs. What was the nature of your communication with Sidewalk Labs Alphabet while you were working for the federal government?
4 p.m.
John Brodhead Director of Policy and Strategy, Sidewalk Labs
Thank you for the question.
I worked at Infrastructure Canada and then left and went to be chief of staff at Indigenous Services. I had absolutely no contact with Sidewalk Labs while I was chief of staff for the infrastructure minister. My first contact with them was after the RFP was completed, when I was at Indigenous Services.
4 p.m.
NDP
4 p.m.
Director of Policy and Strategy, Sidewalk Labs
One of their newly hired staff reached out to me to talk about Toronto issues. She had recently taken on the role and wanted to learn more about Toronto politics.
4 p.m.
NDP
4 p.m.
Director of Policy and Strategy, Sidewalk Labs
Following that, multiple conversations took place until late January 2018, at which point I was expecting an offer from Sidewalk Labs. I got in touch with the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and had that conversation. Once the offer was received, I submitted that and all of the other information that was required by the commissioner, and the office greenlit my ability to accept that offer in early February 2018.
4 p.m.
NDP
Charlie Angus NDP Timmins—James Bay, ON
Thank you.
I think one of the concerns we have is that certainly the Prime Minister has been very close on this project. When I read the Auditor General's report—I might be reading a different Auditor General's report than my colleagues were asking about—I see that the Auditor General noted that one of the problems with this process was that the communications and consultations that should have been done at other levels were being done at a very high political level. Who was doing that behind the scenes consultation at a high political level?
