Information & Ethics Committee on March 29th, 2021

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

It was just a group that was about to get a billion dollars, before that was about to go to cabinet.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

It was one of them.

Actually, they requested a meeting many times before he could find the time to meet with them, because he was meeting with everybody else.

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

Yes, that was just before it went to cabinet, for a billion dollars—$900 million.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Again, Mr. Angus, the cabinet makes the decision. Some is—

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

I know, but don't you think the director of cabinet is going to have do some...? What kind of operation are you running there, Pablo? He was just being a nice guy, talking to all kinds of people? He wasn't talking to the YMCA. He wasn't talking to Imagine Canada. He was talking to the Kielburger brothers, who were about to get $900 million—

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

We'll give the minister an opportunity to answer the question. Then we'll go to Mr. Carrie.

Mr. Rodriguez.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

He is talking to a lot of people, Charlie, with all due respect. I know that. It is a fact. And the PMO has to be open.

The other thing, if I may say so, Mr. Chair, is that everything has to be done super quickly. Right? We're in the middle of a pandemic, so we have to put programs in place, and this and that. If you think that in normal times.... Well, maybe in normal times, but these are not normal times, Charlie.

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

Well, a billion dollars is—

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

But we do our best. We try to do our best.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Mr. Angus. Your time is up.

We're going to turn to Mr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Rodriguez, Mr. Angus just asked you a question about meetings. He asked about a specific meeting, but I believe you said they tried to get a bunch of meetings before that and they didn't get them. Maybe after this meeting you could give us those dates that they tried to get in touch with Mr. Theis.

In response to Mr. Gourde, you said you were never involved in the WE process. Yet you're the minister who Mr. Trudeau sent to committee today. I'm sure you prepared extensively for today, but you may notice there's some frustration in our voices, because there are so many contradictions in what the government's put out on this. Our job is to get to the truth for Canadians. I just want to lay out the narrative that has been given by your government.

Mr. Rodriguez, on April 18 officials from the former finance minister, Bill Morneau, and other government officials suggested WE as a potential third party for a student service grant program. On April 20 Michelle Kovacevic, deputy assistant minister of finance, said in an email to officials from the Privy Council Office that the PMO was already weighing in on the WE proposal. Yet according to the PMO's released timeline of events, there's no mention of the PMO until Sofia Marquez, the director of government relations at WE, emailed a staffer at the PMO and referred her to Rick Theis, the Prime Minister's policy adviser. On May 1 Mr. Theis contacted Ms. Marquez indicating interest in a meeting by phone, a call that takes place on May 5 with both Marc and Craig Kielburger as well as Ms. Marquez.

Before finance committee last year, the Prime Minister's chief of staff testified that the 25-minute call was merely for general discussion before Mr. Theis referred the Kielburgers and Ms. Marquez to the ESDC, yet the PMO summary says the only topic of the call had to do with Rick Theis's concern regarding diversity of placement for programs, which is an issue that takes no more than five minutes to resolve, leaving approximately 20 minutes unaccounted for. Like, what exactly was in that conversation? What are we hiding here? What's the government hiding?

To make matters worse, Mr. Rodriguez, in response to Craig's follow-up email, Mr. Theis said that they should be in touch soon. There'd be no plausible reason for why Mr. Theis would think to be in contact with a stakeholder that hasn't even been approved for a relevant government contract—that is, of course, unless your government had something to hide. Yet Craig Kielburger sent a follow-up email suggesting that Mr. Theis and the PMO should help WE streamline the contribution agreement. That was three days before the Prime Minister was even made aware of WE's approval, according to the PMO's summary, and 17 days before cabinet approved WE as the third party administrating the Canada student service grant program.

There's no reason why talk of a contribution agreement should come up unless the call was more than a general discussion, Mr. Rodriguez. It's also critical to note that May 5 was the exact date that the contribution agreement, which was approved on June 23, applied retroactively, meaning that WE was able to receive reimbursement expenses from the federal government before the Prime Minister even knew of WE's approval.

With your government's narrative laid out, the math just doesn't add up. We have a finance official saying the PMO is weighing in on WE's proposal 10 days before the PMO's summary indicates any substantive discussion between WE and PMO officials; a 25-minute phone call that was supposedly very general but suspiciously took 20 minutes longer than needed; Craig Kielburger suggesting that the PMO should help WE streamline the contribution agreement despite the PMO not even being aware of WE's proposal until three days later; and Mr. Theis suggesting to Craig Kielburger that they should speak again soon despite your government's claim that it's the ESDC alone who handled the Canada student service grant program's crafting. To top it all off, the contribution agreement signed between WE and the government applied retroactively to May 5, long before WE was supposedly given the go-ahead to implement the program.

Mr. Rodriguez, I can't even count how many holes are in this plot, and here today you have given no testimony that lays any rest to the unanswered questions evident in your government's narrative. There are only four people who can do that—Rick Theis, Ben Chin, Amitpal Singh and the Prime Minister. My question is very simple. You are not one of those people. Which ones will be coming to testify before us on Wednesday? Could you please let us know? We need to find answers.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Carrie. It's nice to see you. It's been a while.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left to give an answer?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Mr. Carrie is almost out of time, but you should take the remainder of it. I will give you, as the chair's prerogative, a bit of additional time to answer the questions that were asked.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you. It is much appreciated.

As I mentioned, Mr. Carrie, there was no discussion during that phone conversation about agreements, contract money or anything like that. If I may, I would like to remind you that it's the public servants who recommended WE. They said that WE was the only one that could administer the program. That is why, when it went to cabinet for the first time on May 8, it was pulled back. We wanted more due diligence, as the Prime Minister had many questions on a lot of things, and then we moved ahead. It was definitely as it should be. I mean, the public servants were involved since the beginning and they made that recommendation. That's how it was. There are no new facts here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

Thank you, Minister.

We'll turn to Ms. May now, for five minutes.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you. I'm deeply grateful to have a five-minute round.

I'll start by saying that I think I'm the only member, of those asking questions of the minister, who voted in favour of the motion that compels staffers to be present and who thinks that it's appropriate for a minister to step forward and replace a staffer. I also want to put on record that the position taken by Mr. Poilievre in 2010 was incorrect. The position he takes today is correct. I think political staffers may in fact have essential information that committees need, but given principles of ministerial responsibility and accountability, it's appropriate for a minister to replace them.

We've been very informal here. We've all been acknowledging friendships, so I'll say Pablo, we are old friends. Is it your full understanding, as I see it now, that Mr. Rick Theis had one interaction with WE Charity, Marc and Craig Kielburger and Sofia Marquez, and that the entirety of his direct communication with them was a 25-minute phone call on May 5? Is that correct?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Thank you very much, Elizabeth. It's great to see you. It's been a while. I miss seeing you guys. It's difficult to be in our homes all the time.

Yes, indeed, that was the only phone conversation. I made sure to ask Mr. Theis all of those questions. I asked, “Was that the only conversation?” He said, “Absolutely.” I asked for the content of the conversation and it was exactly what I explained to you. There was no conversation before that. There was no conversation after that. There was only, I think, an exchange of one email and he said something like, “We'll be in touch again.” When I asked about that, he said that it was out of courtesy and something they usually do, which is true.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

For me, a lot of the questions.... I went back over my notes from when a number of key players testified to a different committee, to the finance committee. That was some months ago, but I was able to participate in those meetings as well.

Certainly the public of Canada—anyone paying attention to this issue—knows that Rachel Wernick, as assistant deputy minister for the key department of employment services, ESDC, testified. The Prime Minister testified. His chief aide, Katie Telford, testified.

I don't know that Mr. Theis's phone call on May 5 adds anything. I say that, because part of me regrets voting for a motion to compel staffers to come forward if they didn't have anything important to contribute. In the case of Mr. Theis, now that I realize we're looking at one phone call of 25 minutes on May 5, I don't see how it can be germane. We know that decisions and conversations took place with Rachel Wernick; conversations took place to get the WE Charity lined up way before a conversation on May 5.

We know that the announcement was made April 22 that there would be such a program. The Prime Minister made the announcement before any agency was lined up to do the work. They then backtracked and said, “No, Prime Minister, you can't use the Canada Service Corps. It can't do the work.” Then somehow WE Charity's name got into the mix. Then, we had a May 8 effort to key it off and it was rejected until June 25.

Not to waste too much of the committee's time—and I apologize—but it seems to me that it's only appropriate to ask staffers to be compelled to appear at a committee if they have information that's relevant. I don't see how Mr. Theis's 25-minute phone call on May 5 can add anything substantial to what we already know, since the WE Charity was already being keyed up to go to the key cabinet committee before that call. It was on the agenda for May 8. It got bounced back until June 25 for reasons that are already much in the public domain.

That includes, by the way—it's in the public domain, so I don't know why everyone's dancing around this.... I'm sorry to all colleagues, but just to point out, everybody knew that Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau had been in London with the WE Charity. The only question is whether her way was paid there. She got COVID from attending the WE Charity event in March. We all know this.

My only question remaining is, will the government continue to oppose having staffers come forward if they have relevant additional information?

Mr. Rodriguez, I think you've demonstrated that the one thing you can tell us is that there was a 25-minute phone conversation on May 5, and nothing more than that. If that's the sum total of it, I don't know that it was worth your time or the committee's time for you to bring that information forward.

Do you have any other comments on what you may or may not have been told by Mr. Theis as to any pertinent involvement that he had in this matter?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Elizabeth, it was extremely important for me to have that conversation with Mr. Theis. Today, when I had a little bit more information to ask, I did again...to make sure that I was able to provide that information to the committee. The total of the time he spoke to them is exactly what you said. It was about 25 minutes. It was mostly a general conversation, and that's what it was.

Now, everybody knew this. Honestly, I don't know why Mr. Theis's name was added to that motion. It's not up to me to decide, or judge or whatever. I'm just asking, the same way you are asking, because it was known that there was only a conversation of 25 minutes a long time ago. Why? Because we provided thousands of pages of documents.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Do you happen to know if—?

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

I'm recognizing a point of order.

Mr. Angus.

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

It's just that we are about 30 seconds away from the three-hour mark and we need full committee support to continue. I can't continue after five o'clock.

I'm asking, because we have two motions before us, are those going to be picked up on Wednesday?

[The Chair, Conservative, Chris Warkentin]

We certainly have time on.... I suspect that we have time. I think if there's committee will to move forward on those motions, we certainly could do that.

I take your point that you're leaving, and I suspect that members would want to have all members present if the motions were to be debated.

[An hon. member]

Yes.