Evidence of meeting #91 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was project.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Gourde.
Mr. Bains, for five minutes.
Go ahead, please.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My first question is for Ms. Verschuren.
You're trying to explain the decision made on a group of applications that you moved to.... One of them was one that you were tied to. Can you just expand on that?
5:30 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
About 140 companies were in pretty dire trouble. These were all pre-revenue companies. At the time the board was looking at these payments, the board sought legal advice. Because the funding was for the existing portfolio and not for individual projects, there was a declaration that the conflicts had already been declared. That was the legal opinion we used to make that happen.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
You mentioned that you spent time—I think it was two hours—with the Ethics Commissioner. Can you expand on any advice you received? Two hours is quite a long time.
5:35 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Yes. I'm very involved in the clean-tech sector across the country. I really believe that—
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
But did you share the situation at hand, or the decision that was going to be made that you moved on?
5:35 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
No.
Honourable Member, this was done four and a half years ago when I was asked to become chair.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
So that meeting took place before that. I thought it was during it.
5:35 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
That's right, it took place then.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
I'm going to go to Mr. McConnachie.
Can you explain the current role of ISED right now with these alleged allegations? The Auditor General is now looking at it. What are you doing to co-operate with that?
5:35 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Management Sector, Department of Industry
I can speak to that in a limited sense, Mr. Chair.
Certainly, the outcome of the fact-finding report was the development of a management response and action plan, which was sent to SDTC and which they've agreed to implement in a timely manner so as not to impact the stakeholders. The minister has requested that it be delivered by December 31. My understanding is that SDTC is well along the way to completing that work. The minister has also agreed to co-operate, obviously, with the investigation of the Auditor General. I'm not involved in that matter.
Secondly, the minister had requested to the deputy, upon receipt of these findings, that we complete a recipient audit of the organization. That's been forestalled now, due to the OAG coming in.
The last piece is that the minister has decided to engage a third party law firm to allow additional complainants to come forward with full protection to speak to any matters that may be of concern, including some of the human resources-related matters that were largely out of the scope of the RCGT fact-finding exercise.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
November 8th, 2023 / 5:35 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Financial Officer, Corporate Management Sector, Department of Industry
In the conduct of the fact-finding, part of the plan that was developed in collaboration with RCGT was to identify clear and objective evidence that would be factual only. In the case of HR allegations, it's very, very difficult to do that. Generally speaking, you need to receive testimony from all parties. There's a more broad investigative process that would probably take much longer and would require additional expertise outside of what RCGT could provide.
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
5:35 p.m.
Liberal
Parm Bains Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
Ms. Lawrence, can you explain the HR practices SDTC has in place?
5:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Certainly, honourable member.
We have rigorous hiring and recruitment processes that we follow. These have been followed throughout. In fact—
5:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
They are updated annually or on a two-year basis. We work in concert with the human resources committee of the board of directors. They have oversight as well into that.
In the last number of years, for example, we have often done pulse surveys and employee surveys. In fact, last spring, in February and March, we did a human resource survey with a third party, Edelman, who went through and looked at employee wellness, health and safety. They came back and showed us that we have a strong culture. We have a strong work environment. Employees feel supported.
They also made some suggestions about some things that are really common across many organizations postpandemic. We have many people who work remotely. About half of our employees don't live in Ottawa or even Ontario. They live in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia. They had some recommendations for supports for those employees. Given the remote environment and given individual contributors, with respect to supports—
5:35 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
That's one of the many processes we have in place.
5:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Ms. Lawrence and Mr. Bains.
The worst part of this job is cutting people off. I hate doing that. I apologize.
That concludes our second round. We will be going until about 6:15 p.m., so what I would like to suggest is that, if we can just reset, we can maybe get into six-minute rounds. It will still leave us with time for two five-minute rounds.
That will give you a little more time, Mr. Green and Mr. Villemure.
Is the committee okay with that? Okay. We'll start with six minutes.
Mr. Brock, go ahead, please.
5:40 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to ask some more questions regarding the lawyer, Mr. Vandenberg. I understand that he is a partner at Osler. Is that correct?
Mr. Vandenberg is also on the internal SDTC committee. He's a member. Is that correct?
5:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Yes.
5:40 p.m.
Chair, Board of Directors, Sustainable Development Technology Canada
Yes.