Evidence of meeting #6 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 value.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Sure.
What was the cost?
4:55 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I'm trying to remember. I think it was $10,000. It was not a big deal.
4:55 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
It certainly wasn't $1.2 million.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Could you tell us, Mr. McCracken, how long your firm has been in existence? How long has Informetrica been—
4:55 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
It's only been around since 1972, December of 1972. We started paying people on January 1, 1973. So that's been 34 years, or 35 years by the end of this month, actually.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
On page 3 of your comments, in about the fourth paragraph down, you said that “Without the details contained in the Confidential Information Memorandum it is impossible to properly evaluate the sale”. Yet we have an evaluation here that is supposedly pointing to the fact that the government made a bad deal.
So how can we honestly accept this evaluation, when you've said in your own comments that it's impossible to evaluate the sale without that information?
4:55 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
We shared with Mr. McCracken the confidential information memorandum, and we asked him to analyze that document. So he had the details.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
That goes against what you said later in your comments: “We were given the document on the condition that we keep it secret”.
4:55 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
We were asked to keep it confidential—which we did. Mr. McCracken worked for us under a pledge or oath of confidentiality. The document has not been shared with any other parties. At no time did we say that we would not analyze the documents. As a public sector union, a union that believes in government in Canada, we felt it was incumbent on us to do some analysis to see if this really was a good deal for Canadians.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
On the whole issue of coming to a realistic value for anything, whether it's real property or something else, I would say that I've been to enough auctions to know that a bidder will bid up until a point where he feels it's no longer of value to him. Now, the person selling could establish some theoretical reserve bid, at which point, if he didn't achieve that, he then certainly wouldn't sell the property.
So my point is simply this. If we had eleven bidders bidding on these properties—and I think many auctioneers would be glad to have two or three bidders, let alone eleven—and you have that kind of competition and you come up with this value for the buildings you've sold, it seems to me rather theoretical or hypothetical to suggest after the fact, well, we could have received more. I don't understand that. You'll have to help me come to grips with it.
4:55 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I don't know the answer to that. I would look to the nature of the eleven bids you received, and try to understand how many of those were for all of the properties, whether some were just for one and whether there were multiple bids on one property, just to know the degree to which you might have had the kind of competition you allege there was.
Where eleven people are bidding on a piece of property, it's not clear it is necessarily a competitive setting. Keep in mind—particularly if you have a government who's trying to establish a track record, with a phase one and a following phase two—you may well have people saying let's take a look at it and see what's there and we'll throw in a bid, and if we get lucky, fine, but if we don't, then so be it. So I don't know how many serious bidders were in that group. Obviously there was at least one.
You could take your view, though, that this is what we could get. Then the question becomes what was the due diligence on the part of government to establish its reserve price? I guess my approach in what we were doing was to say, well, what should they be expecting from a government's perspective to get out of this deal? And that's where we came up short.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
I think that study was done by BMO and Scotiabank or whichever other company was here that did that.
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
Yes, I had some difficulties with that study, as I mentioned to you, and then also the subsequent work by the Deutsche Bank and also the earlier study by the BMO-Royal is based on a lower leased price than was finally effected.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Finally, as it relates to the Musqueam Band, I've been informed that there was discussion that went on with this group, dating back to as early as March 2007. Certainly communication occurred and at least one meeting was held with this group, so I'm having again difficulty accepting the allegation that consultation did not occur.
I also serve on the aboriginal affairs committee, and we frequently come up against this issue of adequate consultation. I've never had it answered to my satisfaction what adequate consultation actually means.
We can consult and consult and consult, but at some point there needs to be a decision made. Again, I would like clarification as to whether or not adequate consultation, in your mind, involves agreement with the proposal or involves at some point someone making a decision.
5 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Well, sir, I would suggest that it's not my opinion that's relevant, but a Federal Court judge granted an injunction. If a Federal Court judge deemed that no consultation had taken place and an injunction was granted, I'm quite comfortable with that person's learned decision.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Harold Albrecht Conservative Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
In spite of the fact that we have records of meetings and communication that occurred?
5 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
I would believe that representatives of the Department of Justice would have presented those to the Federal Court judge.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Diane Marleau
Are there any questions from the Liberals? Are there any more from the Conservatives?
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Mr. McCracken, I just thought I'd spend a bit of time with regard to Informetrica. Is that the name of your company, Informetrica?
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
Informetrica. It's the word inform and then “etrica” at the end, or “infor” and then “metrica”, whatever's easier for you.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
I was just in the real estate industry and I never heard of your company prior to this.
I'm wondering if you could share with us a little of other real estate studies that you've taken part in, some that would be similar to this.