Information & Ethics Committee on Dec. 11th, 2020

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes. I apologize. It's the strategic innovation fund. It's our major industry support program.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Good morning, Deputy Minister. It is a pleasure to have you here this Friday.

Let me explain what my next questions are about. By way of context, I will tell you that I am a newly elected official, and that I have done my homework, of course. I have learned a lot about rules and laws as a member of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

There are a lot of constraints in life. We must be extremely vigilant, in times of pandemic as well as in any other emergency situation.

For example, I used to tell my children that even in an emergency, there has to be a good reason for choosing to cross the street when the traffic light is red. Otherwise, you're in danger of having an accident.

I have no doubt about your professionalism, but it is important for me to shed some light on certain aspects. My questions are aimed at increasing my knowledge.

From what I understand, you knew that Mr. MacNaughton was a former public office holder. Is that correct?

[Simon Kennedy]

Yes, of course. He was Canada's ambassador to the United States.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Are you familiar with section 33 of the Conflict of Interest Act, which deals with post-employment?

[Simon Kennedy]

I know that there are constraints for former public servants with respect to lobbying.

Is this what you are talking about?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We're talking about the orders, specifically.

Do you know that section of the law well?

[Simon Kennedy]

I am aware of the different rules, but, honestly, I don't know all the sections by number, and I would need to have the document on hand. However, I understand what you are talking about.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Your role is very broad. Commitments are made, among others, with representatives of the private sector. What I would like to know, always with a view to helping our fellow citizens in Quebec and Canada, is what due diligence measures have been put in place by the department to process supply contracts. I would like you to give me details.

[Simon Kennedy]

We have very rigorous processes for contract due diligence.

An internal team is mandated to review each contract. Before proceeding and awarding a contract, this team verifies all legal requirements and conflict of interest issues, among others. We have established internal financial controls to ensure that due diligence processes are followed in the department prior to signing. All of this is overseen by our chief financial officer, who is a member of my team in the office that manages the contracts. The largest contracts are reviewed by a separate committee.

Before a contract is signed, it is subject to a range of processes and checks. At the end of the day, we recognize the importance of good stewardship of taxpayers' money.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

We know that in a crisis situation, you have to make very quick decisions and be as clean as a whistle—if I may put it that way—when it comes to taxpayers' money, as you said.

In your opinion, is the due diligence that is being done in your department sufficient? In principle, if everything had been checked in the process, there would not have been an order.

[Simon Kennedy]

I'm comfortable saying that our processes are working well.

Even in an emergency situation, such as a pandemic, we always apply the rules. There is no question of disregarding them. From time to time, it may be necessary to make decisions based on less information than normal. For example, when the crisis began, we didn't know what the next day would bring. We did not know the nature of the pandemic, nor what we would need.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Exactly.

[Simon Kennedy]

So—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Kennedy, I'm sorry, but I only have a few seconds left and I have a very important question for you.

What do you think should be done, in executing your duties, to demonstrate that the work is being done diligently, to ensure that there is no appearance of conflict of interest, and to validate that processes are being followed? How do you go beyond what has already been done? If there were nothing to improve, we wouldn't be here talking about it today.

[Simon Kennedy]

We have taken some steps.

First of all, there must be good documentation of the reasons for the decisions made.

In emergency situations, it is still necessary to keep the paperwork and keep a complete history of the decision-making process to be able to justify our actions. We are aware that in the future, the Auditor General or other interested parties may want to know why we made a particular decision.

From time to time, there is a need to act quickly, but this does not remove the need to document decisions or explain why they were made.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kennedy.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Sweet]

We're over time. Mr. Kennedy was well into his answer, so I wanted to give him a few extra seconds to finish it.

Now we're on to Mr. Bachrach. It's a very famous musical name; that's for sure. Welcome to the committee, Mr. Bachrach.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That “Bacharach” has an extra vowel in the middle. Somewhere along the line we lost that extra “a”, but thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for appearing today.

I want to pick up on this April 3 meeting. You mentioned that you were invited by “colleagues” to that meeting. Who exactly set up that meeting?

[Simon Kennedy]

It was the public services and procurement ministry.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Then Minister Bains' office didn't have anything to do with setting up that meeting?

[Simon Kennedy]

I diligently went through my records, and I can inform the committee that there were only two meetings—at the officials level that I'm aware of, certainly—that involved me or my staff. That was the meeting I attended that I described earlier and then the meeting that my staff who are in charge of digital and data had with Palantir staff. Those are the only two. The one that you're mentioning is the one that I attended.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Okay.

You mentioned earlier that this meeting was a result of the call that went to industry and that many, many companies responded to that call. When was that call to industry issued?

[Simon Kennedy]

I don't remember the specific date. It would have been sometime in March. To be frank, we also had an official website that we set up with an address. You could fill in details about what your offer was. You could actually go online and say, for instance, “I'm a manufacturer. I can make masks.” You could leave your contact details for us to get back to you. Thousands came in that way.

As well, a lot of other firms contacted us directly. I cannot tell you at this point whether Palantir might have.... I certainly received an email directly from an official at Palantir—not Mr. MacNaughton, to be clear, but a staffer—saying, hey, we'd like to put our hand up. I don't know whether they came in through the “made in Canada” portal as well, but everybody who came in, whether it was with a direct email or through the portal, all got kind of streamed into this system that we had.

We even had a tracking system. There were very many people coming and offering their help. We had to keep track of everybody and make sure we called them back.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Kennedy, did you know that your minister and your minister's chief of staff had been in contact with Mr. MacNaughton when you took this meeting April 3?