Government Operations Committee on April 15th, 2008

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

I know my colleague Mr. Warkentin feels this is very complex and that it would take at least three meetings. I would think it would be fairly simple. Your office would come in and explain that there was a lawsuit, what the case was. They would say thank you very much, or they would ask you for follow-up.

I don't understand why three meetings were necessary, unless there were questions raised about whether or not this should go to mediation.

[Tim McGrath]

Let me clarify again that we, the departmental officials, were called to only two meetings. One meeting had Jean-François Béland, and one further meeting had both Mr. Soudas and Jean-François Béland.

We do not recall a third meeting on this file that involved departmental officials.

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

You referred to a third meeting. So there were three meetings in total, two with--

[Ellen Stensholt]

The third would have been in the minister's office.

[Tim McGrath]

And the third meeting was very specific in terms of explaining what happened on January 30, which was the lawsuit.

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

I have a final question.

We had Justice Gomery here recently, and he raised a major red flag with this committee about the growing power of the PMO, the lack of accountability and transparency in political staffers who are being vested with more and more power. Yet they meet twice on a request that appears, in the media and our reports, to be about building a power base in Montreal, and you can't supply us with any clear notes or verification about what was said at that meeting.

I would suggest, perhaps, just so that everybody's bases are covered and there is a sense of transparency, that in future when you're going to be meeting with political staffers there be a very clear protocol in place about how that will be handled.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Did you have an answer to that, Mr. McGrath?

[Tim McGrath]

As I mentioned earlier, we do have a protocol. As I said, we often brief the minister's staff on issues of interest and importance to the minister. There is a protocol in terms of the establishment of the meetings. As I said, when we meet with members, staff, MPs, or ministers from other departments, in almost all cases there's a member from the minister's office in attendance at those meetings as well.

As far as taking notes is concerned, we usually take notes only when there's a take-away item; we were the ones providing the briefing. That's been consistent throughout my career, and I've briefed many different ministers over my career.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

We'll go first with Mr. Holland, and I think you'll split your time with Mr. Silva.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have to say that a number of elements of this just don't make sense. First, Mr. Warkentin asked for other examples where this has occurred. Of the two that were given, one is JDS Uniphase, which was a major national issue involving a million-square-foot $600 million deal. That was a massive transaction. I can certainly understand why the Prime Minister's Office would be interested in that. It's a national issue. The other is the parliamentary precinct. I think it's also obvious why the Prime Minister's Office would have an interest in the parliamentary precinct.

What we can't understand is what the motive was, other than what was stated in the Toronto Star, that Mr. Rosenberg is influential and has the potential to influence votes in Montreal. That is the only rationale we have for their briefing. So from what you're saying, three meetings were set up where all that was given was a briefing. They didn't ask any questions, and off he went.

Now, why on earth is that meeting held? Why are they holding a meeting just to get you to give them a technical briefing that could have been given in a page if they didn't have any questions for you? And then why were there subsequent meetings? It's not logical to me. This doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense when you explain.... Surely they must have asked questions or given some indication of what their motive was in having an interest in this file. They just told you to come in and have a briefing?

[Ellen Stensholt]

I knew before I attended the two meetings that officials of the Prime Minister's Office would attend. That's all I knew before the meeting, and I wasn't any wiser after the meeting about why they had attended.

One of the minister's staffers asked me to go through it. It is a commercial file. The minister's office asked questions. Perhaps he asked us the questions he knew the Prime Minister's Office would want answers to. I'm only speculating. I can assure you they didn't speak. I clearly remember Mr. Béland sitting across the table from me with his arms folded, looking at me as I gave the explanation. That is exactly my recollection of what happened.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Doesn't it strike you as odd, their engagement there--this guy staring at you?

[Ellen Stensholt]

I've been around so long, nothing strikes me as odd.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

I guess you've seen everything.

What kinds of questions were the department officials asking?

[Ellen Stensholt]

I was asked to explain the issues in dispute. In the course of my explanation I would have spoken about mediation attempts we had had and the result of various mediation attempts. You probably know that mediation is essentially the default position of the courts; they want us to go to mediation. So we had some court-ordered mediation on some of those files. We were coming up for pre-trials and we had case management things. I would have explained those sorts of issues.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

So they were asking about the litigation and the state of the litigation. It just wasn't the Prime Minister's officials; it would have been others who were asking as they were watching--

[Ellen Stensholt]

As I said--

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

And as you said, the presumption might well be that they were asking these questions on behalf of the Prime Minister's Office.

[Ellen Stensholt]

They could have been; but on the other hand, if you wanted me to explain something to somebody, you probably would say you would like to hear about this or that, and whether it was just the minister's office that wanted to hear about that, whether they knew that's what the Prime Minister's Office wanted to hear. There was nothing untoward in what I briefed. I briefed as to fact.

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

By the way, I'm not suggesting that you did anything at all untoward. What I'm trying to understand is what the motive of this meeting was and why the Prime Minister's Office was so interested in this lawsuit. It's something you can't answer.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Silva.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Your five minutes are up. How about I come back to you after, Mr. Silva?

Madame Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

I would like some clarification. Mr. Loiselle appeared before the committee, but he did not seem to have information about the number of meetings. He was not sure about how many meetings there had been. Mr. Loiselle vaguely remembered other people from the Prime Minister's Office being there.

However, when we insisted, we were told that Claude Alain, Mr. Fortier's senior counsel, was at the meeting. Mr. Béland was also there.

What do you know about Mr. Béland's role?

[Tim McGrath]

No.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

You had no idea. So that was the first time.

Before your meetings with people from Mr. Fortier's office, the so-called briefings that took place in October and January, did you know that there had been several telephone calls and meetings between the Prime Minister's Office and Mr. Fortier's office about the issue that summer?

[Ellen Stensholt]

Not at all.