Government Operations Committee on April 15th, 2008

[Tim McGrath]

Not at all.

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

So you probably read about those calls and meetings in the Globe and Mail article and heard about them on CBC.

[Ellen Stensholt]

That is correct.

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

Perhaps the Prime Minister's Office betrayed you by giving that information later on. But what seems strange to me, Mr. McGrath, is that six months after your meeting in February, the decision was made to sell the buildings. What was your role in that?

[Tim McGrath]

In the sale of the--

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

You did not know. Can you confirm that you did not know that there were meetings about the Rosdev Group between the Prime Minister's Office and Mr. Fortier's office in the summer of 2006?

[Tim McGrath]

That's correct. We weren't aware of any meetings other than the ones we attended.

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

Okay.

You gave the briefings. In February you attended a meeting. Six months later, the government decided to sell federal buildings. What was your role in that?

[Tim McGrath]

I led that process. From the departmental perspective, I led the process of the sale of the real estate assets.

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

Do you remember in which month you were instructed to proceed with the sale of the buildings?

[Tim McGrath]

There wasn't an instruction given to proceed with the sale of the buildings.

The discussions around the management of our real estate portfolio have been ongoing for a number of years. We had started to look at that process under Minister Brison. And then when--

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

More specifically, with the current government, when did you receive instructions to proceed with the sale of federal buildings?

[Tim McGrath]

Yes, in June 2006 we launched the RFP to take on the advisers. That's when we engaged RBC and BMO. But the decision and the discussions with that had started almost as soon as Minister Fortier became our minister. One of the first briefings we provided to Minister Fortier was the discussions around the revitalization of our portfolio.

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

Can you give us some idea of meetings that took place during the six months after February 2007, and of the main steps taken to sell the federal buildings? How were you involved?

[Tim McGrath]

At the time we started the process we had engaged the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal to act as our advisers. That contract was awarded in September 2006. They did an analysis for us. At that point we brought the analysis, which had been termed as phase one, which was the bundling of the nine buildings, back for internal approvals, government approvals. Then in May 2007, I believe, we actually launched the formal RFP process for the sale, and we had concluded the contract in October 2007.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you, Ms. Faille.

Mr. Moore.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thanks.

I would just say that this is actually how a committee should work in the sense that we have this big, glorious, bombshell headline in our newspaper. This committee takes a look at it, scratches it a bit, and we realize there's absolutely nothing there with every meeting. We're now down to this: what was the motive behind asking for the information?

For the full information of this committee, do you have a copy of the...? I'm guessing you used a deck when you briefed at the meetings. Do you have that information that you can table to this committee so we can see the information, so you can do that? I take it you have that in both official languages, and so on.

[Ellen Stensholt]

Yes. It's been severed for solicitor-client privilege only.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Okay. So you can table that.

[Tim McGrath]

Yes, we can.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Good.

[Ellen Stensholt]

We have copies with us to give you today.

[Tim McGrath]

We could table that.

[James Moore, Conservative, Port Moody—Westwood—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I would also like to clarify. Charlie said in his questions, citing Justice Gomery, that there's a lack of transparency. In my six years in opposition, the official opposition, we never had the Prime Minister's staff come before a committee. We had Dimitri Soudas come as a witness before this committee. We offered to have Ian Brodie, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, appear as a witness before this committee. The opposition said no. As a government that allegedly lacks transparency, we went above and beyond anything I've seen from the opposition when they were in government in terms of openness and transparency.

I am curious, though, Mrs. Stensholt. You said there were two meetings, about 45 minutes each, and they did not ask any questions at all.

[Ellen Stensholt]

Honestly, I can't recall being asked. I can't remember their voices, and I'm good at voices.

You have to trust me that I have given serious thought to this. I knew I was coming here today, and I have really done my very best to remember. I've gone through my daytimer, where I often make notes. I have done everything I can to refresh my memory. I do not recall it.

I can remember going out. Another member of my legal services unit was with me, and I more or less remember leaving and saying, “Well, they didn't say anything, did they?”