Government Operations Committee on April 15th, 2008

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I'm sure Mr. Soudas and Mr. Béland wouldn't be offended that you don't remember their being or not being at the meeting. Obviously they didn't leave an impression on you. I think that would maybe suggest, at least to me, that there wasn't a lot of engagement between yourselves and these gentlemen.

[Tim McGrath]

That's correct. It was passive in nature, to be quite honest.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

It's really becoming obvious and very clear to, I think, everybody at this meeting that obviously there was.... I suppose the allegation is that there's some kind of political manoeuvring with regard to these people from the PMO. Obviously it is a regular practice for ministers to request meetings at PMO at which even prime ministers in the past would attend. Obviously these meetings weren't lengthy; they were 45 minutes at best.

With regard to these gentlemen who claim to have some type of political intervention or some manipulation of the facts, you don't even hardly remember them at the meetings in terms of their.... I'm wondering if there's anything further we should know about these meetings, anything that you felt to be out of the ordinary or that we should investigate further.

[Tim McGrath]

I'll let Ellen speak as well.

I didn't find anything unusual. It was, again, a fact-based briefing. We provide the ministers' offices with fact-based briefings all the time. We presented a note; the note was discussed, and there were no take-away items from that in terms of follow-up actions required or anything. It was just a normal briefing that we do on a regular basis for any minister's office.

[Ellen Stensholt]

We brief regularly. I was thinking that I've been briefing ministers for 20 years. I've been briefing through different governments. It is not day to day, every day, that the Prime Minister's Office attends, but it has happened before.

I had nothing to do. For me the telling thing is that I walked away from that meeting without being asked to get back on any particular issue, without being asked if I would look into this or find out about that or decide whether something else was possible. There was nothing like that. It was simply that I explained in more detail than I just gave you in what was supposed to be two minutes. It was just about that straightforward, and I walked away from it with no follow-up.

[Chris Warkentin, Conservative, Peace River, AB]

I really appreciate it. I think even your two minutes, or what was supposed to be two minutes, adds clarity to the questions that many of us have had with regard to what's going on. We have a former minister here at the table as well who probably would have received briefing on these matters, so she maybe would be more educated on this matter. But I'm certain that there are many around this table who would be appreciative of maybe even a similar briefing.

We do appreciate your coming in. Obviously nothing has changed in terms of this file since these meetings, so we appreciate your coming. I think that brings closure. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

Did you want to say something? No? Okay.

Mr. Angus.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you very much for coming today. This has been very enlightening for us.

I think it is obviously to be expected that the Prime Minister's Office will ask to be briefed on certain files at certain times. Certainly there are issues that develop in the media that are politically sensitive, and the Prime Minister's Office will need to know the details. The only politically sensitive thing I could see in the Rosdev file was that it was about building a base in Montreal. It wasn't really on anybody's agenda. Anybody else might have seen this as simply an issue between the landlord and the federal government.

I'm trying to get a sense of what it was that set off this series of meetings. Mr. Housakos is quoted--I think the Toronto Star said he had approached Minister Fortier's chief of staff--as saying, “I told Fred, 'if we can help someone who is powerful, who is important in a riding like Outremont, why not help him?'” Out of that came the request for Minister Fortier's office to then set up a meeting with the Prime Minister's communications team and senior bureaucrats. Was Minister Fortier apprised of how these meetings were to proceed and the results of these meetings?

[Tim McGrath]

Madam Chair, I can't comment on that. All I know is just what I explained earlier. We were asked to attend a meeting--which is normal--something set up by the minister's office and the deputy minister's office. In terms of how those other items came about, it's not that I offer no comment, but I'm not aware of anything that would affect the bureaucracy as a result of that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You said it was Minister Fortier's office that initiated the series of meetings?

[Tim McGrath]

Yes. Minister Fortier's office and the deputy minister's office usually work together to call regular briefings that take place.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Are there any particular protocols in place when a political staffer from the Prime Minister's Office asks to attend a meeting?

[Tim McGrath]

I would suggest it's the same protocol as if we were briefing the minister's office. We provide fact-based briefings. That was the same and consistent in this situation as well.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I was just thinking in terms of my own experience as a member of Parliament. I've dealt with various departments, asked for various briefings. In fact I was heading to a briefing once with a first nation community dealing with a health crisis, and when we got to the meeting the bureaucrats told us that they couldn't meet with me even in the room, because suddenly, according to the Conservative protocol, that would make that immediately a political meeting. Yet a communications officer for the Prime Minister attends the meeting, and you don't have any protocols in place, nothing? It's just that that's common practice?

[Tim McGrath]

Let me clarify that. When we meet with politicians or staff from political offices, normally--and I would say in my own experience in 99% of the cases--there is always somebody from the minister's office in attendance with us. It's rare for us to meet with an elected official or a member of another minister's staff without having a member from our own minister's staff in attendance in the meeting.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

What was the line of questioning in those meetings? You had three meetings. It's sort of being portrayed here as that they sat dumbly and listened. Why would they need three meetings? What did the Prime Minister's staff ask, and what was their line of questioning?

[Ellen Stensholt]

I don't recall being asked a single question by either Mr. Soudas or Jean-François Béland. For example, I tried to remember whether.... I'd been asked whether the briefing happened in English or French, for example.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Didn't you have notes?

[Ellen Stensholt]

I did not. I have a recollection that I walked into that meeting, and the others were already there. It was the minister's office that conducted the meeting.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

But don't you have notes that you would have checked before you came to the meeting today? I'm sorry to interrupt.

[Ellen Stensholt]

We presented at the January 25 meeting. We tabled a list of the legal actions. Yes, we had that. But I didn't make my own notes, because I was doing the presenting. I cannot both speak and write notes.

So I don't have my own notes of the meeting. Normally, when I walk into a meeting I have two minutes to take note of who's chairing it and who's there. In both of these cases, when these other people were there they were already on the other side of the table. There is a protocol for these things. The minister's office sits on one side, the departmental officials come in and sit on the other side. We didn't all come in together. They were already there.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

You don't have someone taking notes of what was—

[Ellen Stensholt]

We did not have someone taking notes. That varies. In my long experience of briefing ministers, it varies with the practice of the various deputy ministers' offices. I've worked with four different deputies at the Department of Public Works alone. Each of them has a different practice with respect to note-taking, meetings, minutes, etc. In my experience, at least, it's individual.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

I'm just trying to get a sense here, because both The Globe and Mail and Radio-Canada said that at those meetings Mr. Soudas raised the possibility of dropping the lawsuit against the real estate firm and going to mediation. This was a meeting with political staffers, yet no notes were taken to keep a record of what was said?

[Tim McGrath]

Again, we were the ones who tabled the fact-based note. In terms of what notes were there, we were the ones who provided the fact-based note to the minister's office. That was basically the representation of our note-taking. We were the ones who were providing the briefing. I do not recall at any time either gentleman raising any questions with us or suggesting that we change the course or direction; nor did the minister's office raise that with us in terms of changing directions either. It was just a fact-based briefing, similar to the summary that—