Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 17th, 2022

[Stéphan Déry]

I can confirm that approval of these contracts was up to the public servants because of that threshold, and so they were the ones who made the decisions and leased this land and these buildings, based on the needs and requests of our clients, IRCC and the CBSA.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I will ask this in English because I think this is an important point to make.

Only public servants, or the consultants with whom they made contracts, were involved in the attribution of these contracts, because they fell well below the delegation of authority. That's been established for a long time, even before this government came along.

[Stéphan Déry]

Mr. Chair, I can confirm it is below the authority. It is an authority, in this case, that can be done by civil servants, not by political staff or the minister.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you.

I have one more question for you, Mr. Déry.

As you have reiterated several times, the role of your department is to respond to the needs of your clients, which are other departments like IRCC or the CBSA. It is your clients that determine their needs, not you. Your role is to make sure, when the contracts are signed, that Canadian taxpayers are getting value for their money.

[Stéphan Déry]

That is exactly it. The clients define their needs and we make sure that the solution we find is suitable for them.

I'll say it in English. There's value for money for Canadians in what we're putting into place.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Déry.

I would like to thank all the witnesses who are present and who are participating virtually.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you, Mr. Fergus. I thank all of our witnesses as well.

I will now suspend for a quick moment. I will ask our witnesses to leave the room, and we will resume with our next panel.

With that, the meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Welcome back, everyone.

We're resuming our study of the use of public funds in relation to the Roxham Road crossing.

I would like to welcome our witness for the second hour.

He is Pierre Guay, the president of Importations Guay ltée.

Before we begin, I will inform the committee that Mr. Guay asked that he be assisted by counsel. As specified by the rules of the House of Commons, is there consent that he may have counsel present?

[An hon. member]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Nobody is objecting. Okay, that's fine. He will be assisted by counsel.

The witness asked for a bit beyond the five minutes.

We're really short on time, so, Monsieur Guay, could you—

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

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

Procedurally, the practice is that the invited witness responds to questions from members of the committee through the chair. Their counsel is able to advise their client and be part of the appearance, as just agreed to by committee, but they are not entitled to standing to speak at the committee.

Is that correct, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Yes, that's correct. Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

With that, I will ask Mr. Guay to begin. I think we told him he could have up to seven minutes, but I'm going to ask him to keep it as short as he possibly can.

Go ahead, Mr. Guay. We're a full 20 minutes behind schedule, it would seem.

[Pierre Guay, President, Importations Guay Ltd., As an Individual]

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the time you're allowing me to speak today.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Thank you for inviting me today to this meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

As a citizen and member of our community, I consider it my responsibility to appear before you today, to cooperate fully with the committee, and to answer its questions, to the best of my ability, in connection with its study of the use of public funds in relation to crossing by asylum seekers at Roxham Road.

Like most of you, I have carefully read the many articles published in the newspapers and other publications in recent months and recent years concerning the challenges that the Canadian government has had to meet and that it is still facing in connection with asylum seekers entering the country and regarding the rental contracts signed by the Canadian government with my companies for placing and temporarily housing these asylum seekers.

Of course, I have also noted that in some of those articles, reference was made to the fact that in recent years I have donated to the Liberal Party of Canada and the Conservative Party of Canada. They insinuated that these donations might have been made with the aim of receiving preferential treatment, several years later, from whatever federal government might be in office.

I would like to take the opportunity you are offering me today to clarify the facts.

As a citizen of this country, I believe it is the duty of us all to promote and participate in our democratic system, each of us according to our choice. In recent years, therefore, I have donated to the Liberal Party of Canada and to the Conservative Party, depending on the years.

The donations to the Liberal Party of Canada total approximately $20,000.00 and were made over the course of some 20 non-consecutive years. The donations to the Conservative Party of Canada come to about $11,500 in total and were made over the course of more than 30 non-consecutive years. None of those donations was made with the aim or in the hope of signing, several years later, or in exchange for, a contract of some sort with whatever federal government might be in office, let alone of receiving any favourable treatment from it.

Moreover, I would like to state that I am not a member of or activist for any political party. I maintain no relationship with any politician, of any party, in either the federal government or the provincial government. I have never solicited any politician or other government representative in order to enter into contracts for the rental of my land and buildings in Saint-Bernard‑de‑Lacolle that I have acquired throughout my career.

In 2017, it was actually officials and other representatives of the federal government who solicited me to inform me of their interest in renting some of my land and buildings along autoroute 15 in Saint-Bernard‑de‑Lacolle so that they could, very urgently, manage and house thousands of asylum seekers. No approach was made by me.

I did not ask whether or not those officials and other representatives of the federal government had issued a request for bids, or whether such a request for bids was required in the circumstances. I was asked to help and to accommodate the government in its management of the asylum seekers, by renting certain of my land and buildings, which I was in a position to do.

I understand that you want to ask me questions today concerning the rental contracts that were signed by my companies with the federal government. On that subject, I understand that the committee has broad powers, but I would nonetheless like to point out that it is my understanding that certain information in those contracts might be confidential.

As a result, I would respectfully ask that you not put me in a position where I would be asked to provide such confidential information, insofar as the committee is able to obtain that information from other sources, and specifically the various branches of the government.

With this said, I wish to mention once more that I am before the committee today on a voluntary basis with the intention to fully co-operate with it and to answer its questions to the best of my knowledge.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

To begin, we will go to Monsieur Paul-Hus for up to six minutes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being with us, Mr. Guay.

I know you are a businessman, and that is fine. However, we do not understand how the government went about things in this case.

Your land is indeed well situated in relation to the Saint-Bernard‑de‑Lacolle border crossing, but it would have been possible to go elsewhere. Initially, that might not have been possible, but today, when the contracts are being renewed for 10 years at the cost of tens of millions of dollars, it raises questions.

One might think you have won the lottery. You may not have asked for it, but you won it. Now, we have to ask whether there was impropriety. We cannot obtain precise information about the costs from the officials.

You say you were contacted by officials or other people. Who negotiated with you at the start? Are you still dealing with the same people or have they changed since then?

[Pierre Guay]

I am going to clarify things.

At the start, it was people from the Canada Border Services Agency who came knocking on my door to see me, because customs was short of a lot of space to accommodate the asylum seekers.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Did you make a note of the names of those people?

[Pierre Guay]

It was customs officers. You can find that out.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Right.

[Pierre Guay]

There were several of them who came to see what was offered. Then teams from Montreal and Ottawa came to check whether it was suitable for rental purposes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Those people met with you and saw that your land would fit the bill, so they asked you how much it would cost to rent your land and buildings. Is that right?

[Pierre Guay]

No. They transferred the file to another department, Public Services and Procurement Canada.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

People from that department were with us earlier, just before you.

They asked you to rent your land, the hotel, and all of your property there. Then you gave them a price. Is that how it happened?

[Pierre Guay]

No. It started slowly. They started by renting small pieces of land for very short periods. There was a lease for the land. We negotiated by telephone with someone from PSPC and established a price based on the market.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

What is a price based on the market?