Finance Committee on July 30th, 2020

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

That's not true.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Poilievre, give the witness time without interruption. We give her equal time.

Go ahead, Ms. Telford.

[Katie Telford]

The program was announced at the end of June. In terms of the details around the contribution agreement, I would refer you back—I know you've already spoken to them—to officials from the department who were involved in that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Right. Your office spoke to WE on May 5, and May 5 is the day that WE believed it could start spending money and implementing the program. Is that just a coincidence?

[Katie Telford]

The policy staff person in our office did what they do all the time—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes or no?

[Katie Telford]

—which is to take phone calls from stakeholders. He took a phone call from a stakeholder and redirected it—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yes or no?

[Katie Telford]

—to ESDC.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It wasn't a stakeholder; it was a group that was implementing a taxpayer-funded program on behalf of your government, one that hadn't even been approved by cabinet. I asked you if it was mere coincidence that WE began implementing this program on the day that the group spoke to Rick in your office, and you refused to answer that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Ms. Telford, you will have about 30 seconds to answer this question, and then you're going to have to split 30 seconds between the two of you.

The floor is yours, Ms. Telford.

[Katie Telford]

I can't speak to how the contribution agreement constructed the details around how they looked back at that time period. I do believe it was that.

In terms of the conversation involving my office, it was a general discussion that was then redirected to ESDC. It actually was as simple as that.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It sounds like the PMO directed the ESDC to give the go-ahead for the program to begin on that very day, before cabinet—

[Katie Telford]

That is not true.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

—before cabinet even approved the decision.

[Katie Telford]

That is not true.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

This is the timeline you're expecting us to believe: that the Prime Minister would not approve this in cabinet until May 22, even though a month earlier the department had told the charity that it would receive the program, and two weeks earlier—before that cabinet decision—they would begin working on it.

That timeline is not just hard to believe. It is chronologically impossible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Mr. Poilievre, that will end your round.

I will give Ms. Telford ample time to reply in detail if she likes.

[Katie Telford]

I would just add that May 5—to add to the things that happened on May 5—was also the day that this proposal went to the COVID cabinet committee. It's possible officials were in touch with them in and around that, but I can't speak to that.

What I can speak to is what I know, which is that it went to cabinet committee that day. It was going to go to cabinet on May 8, and it was then that we were first briefed on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you both. We'll go to Mr. McLeod.

Who is up next from the official opposition? You can give me a hand in a bit.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I'll be up, Mr. Chair, in the next round.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It's Mr. Morantz. Okay.

Mr. McLeod, you have five minutes, sir.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the presentation today and for joining us to answer our many questions.

There is a lot of work that's been happening on this issue. As I mentioned to the Prime Minister, we have now had five meetings on this study. I think there are probably going to be two other committees, if they're not already in place, and reviewing and studying this is all happening in the middle of a pandemic.

After every session that we have, I always get a lot of calls. People ask me about certain concerns they have, certain issues that they don't understand, or they ask me to explain things.

You've mentioned the COVID committee a couple of times now. Could you elaborate a little bit on what it does and what its responsibilities are?

That's my first question.

[Katie Telford]

Yes. I'm not entirely certain of the date, but I believe it would have been in early March—it might have been as early as late February, but I believe it was early March—that the Prime Minister struck a cabinet committee that we refer to as the COVID cabinet committee, which Deputy Prime Minister Freeland chairs and the treasury board president Jean-Yves Duclos vice-chairs.

It has been a place to move and take proposals that involve the emergency measures and the restart. As we've all said, it's an incredible time. It's an unprecedented time. Things are moving extremely quickly. The committee has been meeting multiple times a week for months now, for many hours a day at a time. They look at all of these emergency measures and apply a lens that the cabinet committees, pre-COVID, would have done as well in other areas.

Of course there were cabinet committees on reconciliation and on the economy and on global security. We consolidated things to deal with the emergency measures and the restart with COVID in the COVID committee. Things would go to the COVID committee before then coming to cabinet meetings, which have also been happening more frequently than before COVID.

[Michael McLeod, Liberal, Northwest Territories, NT]

It sounds like they're a very busy committee.