Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 7th, 2020

[Han Dong, Liberal, Don Valley North, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm sorry. I apologize, Mr. Barrett. I don't mean to disrupt or interrupt you.

Mr. Chair, does this question fall under the scope of this motion? I think we had a long debate on whether or not information pertaining to Madam Margaret Trudeau and Alexandre Trudeau should be included in the motion. I believe there was a decision on that by this committee. I'm just wondering if this falls under the scope of the motion.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

It doesn't fall directly under the scope of the motion, but it also is not excluded by the motion either, Mr. Dong. Members have quite wide freedom in order to ask questions. That's the way the book says it, as well as the way we've governed the committee so far, so Mr. Barrett is able to ask those questions and should get an answer as well.

I stopped the time there for the point of order. Go ahead now, Mr. Barrett. Continue your time.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

If the witness is able to answer, I look forward to the answer. If he's unable to for legal or other reasons and he states as much, that would be appreciated.

Sir, having had those conversations with those two individuals, are you able to disclose today publicly any other information with respect to speaking engagements by Mr. Alexandre Trudeau or Madam Margaret Trudeau?

[Martin Perelmuter]

No, I'm not able to disclose any other information.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

All right. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I'd like Mr. Berthold to have the balance of my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for agreeing to appear before the committee.

The Kielburger brothers' big firm was hired to deliver the WE Charity program. The Kielburger brothers had the capacity to communicate with youth all over the country. On May 15, they began doing business with NATIONAL Public Relations.

Mr. Daraiche, was the purpose solely to reach out to francophones?

[Martin Daraiche]

It was to reach out to not-for-profit organizations, as well as students in Quebec and other areas with francophone communities.

I'd like to clarify something, if I may. Our mandate was focused on communications. We were not mandated to manage the program; we had asked for—

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Sorry to cut you off, Mr. Daraiche, but I don't have much time. Your comments were very clear.

[Martin Daraiche]

Thank you.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

It is clear that, in reviewing the WE Charity contract, the Treasury Board did not conduct an official languages impact analysis. You said cabinet approved the contract on May 22.

Between May 15 and 22, did your firm, NATIONAL Public Relations, and WE Charity communicate often to define your mandate, to set the parameters? What was the scope of the mandate and how long was it supposed to last?

[Martin Daraiche]

Sorry, the sound cut out for a moment.

I heard you ask about communications between May 15 and 22.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Precisely.

[Martin Daraiche]

Would you mind repeating the question, please?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

They contacted you via LinkedIn, which is a bit surprising.

On May 22, cabinet approved the grant program. What recommendations did you make to WE Charity between May 15 and 22? Were you able to deliver on the mandate for all of Quebec? During that time, did WE Charity tell you that it could not meet the requirements in relation to francophones?

[Martin Daraiche]

I can confirm that the first contact between WE Charity and our firm was via the network LinkedIn, on May 15.

In the days that followed, a service proposal was established. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the purpose of the proposal was to define the support that we could provide in terms of reaching out to not-for-profit organizations and students to make them aware of the program.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

At which point, WE Charity recognized that it was unable to adequately communicate with French-speaking clients.

What impact did losing the contract with WE Charity have on NATIONAL Public Relations? Did you suffer any losses? You said at the beginning that it was a very big contract. I imagine you had to hire people. What were NATIONAL's losses?

[Martin Daraiche]

There are two parts to your question.

The first has to do with deployment capability. You were referring to the organization's capability. The real challenge where our mandate was concerned was being able to carry it out within a very short time frame, between late May and June, before the summer. Our job was to reach out to as many not-for-profit organizations and students as possible to make them aware of the program. The real challenge, then, was being able to deploy outreach efforts to target as many organizations and students as possible.

The second part of your question is about the losses incurred by NATIONAL, so I would appreciate it if you could be more specific. As soon as the mandate ended, our team stopped working on it, so there were no losses in that regard. I hope that answers your question.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Did you hire any dedicated staff, on top of your regular staff?

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

That's all the time we have right now, colleagues.

We'll move on to Madam Shanahan for six minutes.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

First of all, to the witnesses, thank you very much for appearing before us here this morning.

If my colleagues won't do it, I will do it. Speaking to Mr. Perelmuter, I will apologize on behalf of those of us on this side for the distress that your employees and your company have experienced as a result of the actions of certain colleagues on this committee.

I understand that we, as parliamentarians, sit in a very privileged position and we have the bully pulpit and so on. To be casting those kinds of aspersions and putting people at risk.... I do apologize, certainly, for this side of the committee.

I want to thank the NATIONAL representatives.

You do honourable work, and I'm very curious to learn more about how you do what you do.

Chair, I find it curious that members of this committee were very keen to have these witnesses here, but we only have an hour to ask questions. I invite the witnesses, if they want to follow up in writing with more detailed answers to any of the questions that we ask here today, to please do so.

My first question, in fact, Mr. Perelmuter has already referred to. Indeed, can you tell me whether you have ever been a member of the Liberal Party in any way, shape or form? I'm making an allusion here to the McCarthy era when many innocent people were dragged in front of committees and aspersions were made.

Mr. Perelmuter, can you tell me, to your knowledge, if you or your company has in any way acted in an improper manner?

[Martin Perelmuter]

No, we have not, and I've never been a member of any political party.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you very much for that.

Again, the opposition in their zeal to tarnish anyone or any company that is even remotely connected to the Liberals, as we witnessed at last Friday's meeting with the ridiculous attacks, if I may, Chair, on Baylis Medical, was shown to be nothing but a smear campaign.

The opposition has made a number of public comments about your company in turn. Would you like to respond to the attacks made upon you and the effects they have had?

[Martin Perelmuter]

Yes, thank you.

I understand how politics works as an outsider and I understand that it can be a tough business. I understand that you may have disagreements among or between yourselves in the parties. As members of public office I think you signed up for that and you've taken on a public role, so if you don't like something the other party is doing, I understand the need to call each other out at times. I think you should be civil, but I understand how that works.

We are tangentially connected to this matter. As I mentioned in my statement, we don't have any knowledge of the student service grant. We have nothing to do with that.

It was very surprising, a week after we received a call from the clerk of this committee telling us not to submit documents, to receive a letter from a member of the committee, on House of Commons letterhead, asking us to “do the right thing” and release all the documents.

We retained a counsel who is an expert in privacy law because we realized from the beginning that this was probably a complex matter and we probably should make sure we proceeded properly at all times. I sent that letter to our counsel and she was actually quite upset by the letter. She said that it was an illegal request and that if we complied with the request it would be breaking Canadian law. We would be violating our clients' privacy rights.

I was surprised that a member of this committee would ask us to do that, to contravene Canadian law. What was more surprising was that I received the letter on the morning of August 27, and at the same time I received it, I also received a letter from a journalist, a reporter from The Canadian Press, attaching a copy of the letter and asking for my comment.

I was actually confused and baffled at how a reporter had a letter that was sent to me that I hadn't even had a chance to read yet. We don't have time to get into it, but a series of events that happened after that put us in a really difficult situation, something I've never experienced before.

As a leader of a small company I feel that my first obligation is to ensure the physical, emotional and mental health safety and well-being of our employees. For the first time in my 25-year career I was in a situation where I didn't feel that I could properly protect everyone from what was going on. We had to get the police involved. It was a really nasty situation.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Mr. Perelmuter, did you feel that you were being intimidated by a member of Parliament?