Information & Ethics Committee on Nov. 8th, 2023

[Douglas McConnachie]

I did not say that, sir.

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

“The deputy is lining up a discussion with the minister imminently to take the pulse.”

You did say it.

[Douglas McConnachie]

I'm sorry. I don't know if it happened, though, sir.

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

Okay. This is the challenge. If we just stick to what actually happened versus what we would prefer to have happened, that would match up with the recordings that we have, and then we could get to the bottom of this.

Did the minister see or get a readout on the Osler report?

[Douglas McConnachie]

I don't know if he did or not, sir.

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

Did you?

[Douglas McConnachie]

Yes. We were provided a verbal debrief by the SDTC.

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

Was it a whitewash?

[Douglas McConnachie]

I don't know.

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

All right. You said it was. You referred to it as the “Osler whitewash investigation”. You went on to say, “They could have done it in a way that exonerated the board and scapegoated Leah.”

I expect you were referring to Ms. Lawrence.

Was it the RCGT report that gave him confidence that the board did not need to be fired? It found that there was $48 million in suspected wrongdoing. The minister referred to this at committee as a forensic audit. It was, of course, not that. It was a fact-finding exercise, and that is why Canada's Auditor General has launched an investigation.

It also found wrongdoing in a sample of only 21 projects, and it said that the conflict of interest rules were not followed. Is this what gave confidence to the minister, that readout?

[Douglas McConnachie]

I'm sorry. Which readout are you referring to?

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

I'm referring to the RCGT report that detailed the wrongdoing and failure to follow the conflict of interest regime.

[Douglas McConnachie]

Our interpretation of the RCGT report is that the findings that were made do not constitute wrongdoing or misconduct. We had significant discussions internally as to whether or not these issues would even constitute a breach of the contribution agreement. Frankly, they didn't even rise to that standard, sir.

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

Well, it rose to the standard to get Canada's Auditor General's attention.

You said that it was going to be shut down and that everyone would be fired. However, instead, nothing was shut down, and nobody was fired.

As soon as it became a political problem, the tone changed very dramatically. The minister isn't firing anyone. Then we saw that a foundation, which shares the name of the chair of the board, was receiving funding from the government and praise from the minister. I'm very curious about what changed the direction.

I have one question for you: Do you believe the whistle-blowers?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Give a quick response.

[Douglas McConnachie]

Those remarks that were made were speculative in nature. I believe a portion of what the whistle-blowers have alleged, based on the facts that have been identified in the RCGT report. I believe that nothing was found, to date, that would be construed as misconduct or wrongdoing. There may be further findings in the Auditor General's examination, but I'm not privy to that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thanks, Mr. Barrett.

Ms. Fortier, you have six minutes.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. Thank you for being here today.

Before I ask my questions, I do want to say that I'm a bit disappointed that I wasn't able to ask questions right after the minister's appearance on Monday. It would have been good to see what the minister said and right away have that conversation with you, but this is where we are today.

I'm going to quote the minister, just so that we're in the same space.

The minister did mention that he works “on the basis of evidence.” He said, “I'm a lawyer. I would certainly caution members of this committee to apply due process when they're looking at allegations. That's why, the moment I was made aware of allegations, we had a third party come to do a full investigation and report back to me.” I have another one. He said, “Let's be clear. Our government will always hold all organizations that receive public funds to the highest standards.” He also said, “It is integral that due process and due diligence continue to guide these next steps.” Finally, I have one more: “I also remain fully committed to exploring [the complainants'] allegations.”

That's just a refresher of what the minister said.

I would like to ask SDTC some questions. I'm not sure who will answer, but feel free to answer.

When did SDTC become aware of the alleged allegations raised by the whistle-blowers? What was your organization's initial plan and reaction to address this?

[Leah Lawrence]

Thank you, honourable member.

I'll start, and I'll ask Ms. Urie to add to the discussion.

SDTC became aware of the allegations on or around January 27 when a whistle-blower approached a director of SDTC and raised concerns with that director.

It is my understanding—I was not involved in this—that immediately the governance committee met and struck a special committee to do an independent investigation, as is our process, as announced in our approach.

That independent group hired a national law firm, Osler, to look into those allegations. They spent over 35 hours and looked at tens of thousands of documents using artificial intelligence and keyword searches to go through the allegations that had been made to the director.

Of course, you have that with you in the findings in the package that we distributed to the committee. Of course, you will have seen that Osler found—as did RCGT—that the allegations were not substantiated.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Thank you.

Can you highlight the official ethics guidelines that your organization is expected to follow? Can you explain the processes and mechanisms in place that ensure that these guidelines are properly followed by all of the board and employees, please?

[Leah Lawrence]

I'll ask Ms. Urie to please address that.

[Sheryl Urie, Vice-President, Finance, Sustainable Development Technology Canada]

Thank you for the question.

Our board of directors is subject to a number of policies relating to conflict of interest and code of ethics.

In particular, conflicts of interest relating to projects are very important. Throughout our process, SDTC manages them like this: A board member receives information from us. There are many conflicts that are checked in advance. It starts with a maintained conflict of interest registry, which records all previous conflicts that may have been declared by board members. In advance of the distribution of any information to board members—three weeks in advance—we send out an email to board members that summarizes the information related to the project. This includes the company applying for a project, project partners and expert reviewers. That information is shared with board members. Board members have to respond within a week with any conflicts they need to declare, or respond that there's no conflict. When that information is received by SDTC, we take it and consolidate our project packages. We submit information to individual board members to ensure any board member who may have a conflict of interest has no access to information related to that project.

When it comes to discussions at our project review committee, all conflicts that have been declared are identified and discussed at the beginning of the committee. There may be a discussion around those conflicts, but they're noted in the minutes. As the meeting moves forward, if there is a particular committee member who may have declared a conflict related to that project, they're recused from the meeting. They are moved to a virtual Zoom room as required, since we do a lot of these things that way. They will rejoin the meeting after the project has been discussed and voted on.

I think one of the inconsistencies in our documentation is this: We neglected to note that an individual committee member left the meeting room, then returned to the meeting room.

This, again, happens at the board level when there are discussions related to projects. The same activities are followed. The individuals who have a conflict with a project are recused from any of the discussions and from voting on any particular project at the board level.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier, ON]

Am I done already?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have eight seconds.

Mr. Villemure, you have six minutes.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today to help us better understand what is going on.

I have two questions. My first is for Mr. McConnachie.

The committee requested an unredacted copy of the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton report but was provided with a redacted version. We asked for a version with supporting elements at least, and we received some, but it was general. Yesterday, we received another version.

Why was there hesitation?