Evidence of meeting #15 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
Well, as the false story goes, it's Mr. Housakos who is supposed to get money from you for the Conservative Party.
Have you ever met Mr. Housakos?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosdev Group
Maybe at a function, but not on a personal basis.
Conservative
James Moore Conservative Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC
We see this story flying apart rather quickly.
What is the current status of your litigation with the Department of Public Works?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosdev Group
Well, on the option, as I said before, the courts found that the option that Public Works threw at us...it was zero dollars; it was thrown out, and they found that it was not correct. Not only was it not correct, but even the timing of exercising the option was not right.
We went to the appeals court on one function, saying that since they've done it in a wrong manner, we want to have a full trial on it to say whether the option is valid at all. We went to appeal and won that appeal right off the bat. Now it's a possibility that the government might lose the right to the option on the building.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg, for clarifying who you've shaken hands with at busy cocktail meetings.
Conservative
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
I wanted to turn, if I could, to Mr. Housakos. You've been painting yourself as an independent distant observer of politics. Were you not, in fact, the candidate for the Alliance Party in 2000?
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Can you tell me if that generated any bad blood between you and Mr. Fortier at that time?
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Soudas, I'm wondering if you can square something for me, and that was your earlier comment that Mr. Tremblay, who was a prospective candidate, contacted you on a PMO phone. That's what you said. I want you to square that with your comment that you weren't involved in partisan activities.
Deputy Press Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister
Pardon me? Well, as I said previously, Mr. Tamburello raised the file with me in 2006. I looked into the matter. The issue remained before the courts. Later, in 2007, Mr. Tremblay raised the issue with me as well, in passing, and I mentioned to him that the matter was before the courts and that the direction would not be changing on this, because it was before the courts.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
It sounds pretty partisan. It sounds like you were pretty involved.
I'm wondering if I can go back to the comment made before by Madame Folco, because I think it's pretty key, and that's the quote of the Prime Minister. I don't know if you need me to read that again, but to paraphrase the Prime Minister, he had said that you had indicated to him that it was a municipal councillor that had contacted you. So did you mislead the Prime Minister? I don't see anything about “former”. And why on earth would you be acting for former councillors? That doesn't make any sense to me.
So did you mislead the Prime Minister?
Deputy Press Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister
Two people raised this issue with me: Mr. Paolo Tamburello, a former city councillor, and Mr. Marcel Tremblay, a current city councillor.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Did you tell the Prime Minister that this was a current municipal councillor? Did you identify him as a councillor when you did this?
Deputy Press Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister
The two people who raised this issue with me were Mr. Paolo Tamburello, a former city councillor, and a current city councillor, Marcel Tremblay. To both I indicated that this matter was before the courts, after having looked into it.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Mr. Rosenberg, I'm wondering if I can come to you to establish a couple of facts. Rosdev is the proprietor of several buildings within the national capital region that are currently being rented by the federal government. Is that correct?
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
We mentioned the litigation you're involved in with the federal government with respect to these buildings. I think you can imagine--and this gets to the crux of the issue--that it was startling to find Mr. Soudas, who is the Prime Minister's deputy press secretary, calling for a meeting in 2006 to push for the government to drop the lawsuit, particularly when even delaying this matter--and is this not true?--would see the lawsuit dissipate.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosdev Group
Well, let me correct first. It's not that they sued us. We sued the government, to start with, because of money owing to us in the amount accrued of $28 million. They exercised the option around that time. We rejected it off the bat, and they took us to court to try to exercise the option. The judgment said the opposite. It did not exercise it at the right time, and it authorized zero dollars. But we did not ask. It was the opposite; we sued the government.
Liberal
Mark Holland Liberal Ajax—Pickering, ON
Right, but there's a $50 million case against you. We know that Mr. Housakos, who was an Alliance candidate and a contributor to the Conservative Party, described you as someone who was powerful, important--these are his quotes--as someone who was important in getting votes in the Montreal area and in gaining influence. We have Mr. Soudas setting up a meeting, which he says was made on behalf of someone who was a former councillor. He can't even give an example of a current councillor he's done something on behalf of. Yet he's jumping into action for a former councillor to get involved in a case for somebody who has been identified by Mr. Housakos and you as having a great deal of influence.
Can you see that we're left wondering if this is an incidence of you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosdev Group
Well, let me clarify again that the government did not sue us for $50 million. We did not sue them for $50 million either.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Rosdev Group
Yes, but we won off the bat, so the interest is for the taxpayers of Canada to settle this file more than it's in the interest of Rosdev, because we won the case and we won the appeal case. So it's in everybody's interest to settle the file. Nobody wins in court, as they say, but I was just looking to see if we can settle a file, and the right thing still is to sit down and settle a file rather than go to court.
