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.
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
Probably the best example of this type of study is a benefit-cost study.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Specifically on real estate studies of this nature, of this type.
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
On a building value? No, I cannot point to other studies of building transactions at this juncture.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Okay, that's fair. I think that obviously you must have some expertise in some other areas.
I'm wondering if you've ever found the findings of Deutsche Bank or BMO or RBC to be deficient in any of the other projects that you've ever done.
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I have a high general regard for these institutions in the areas of macroeconomic analysis and other areas where we monitor what they put forward, and I know some of the people at all these institutions.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
They often do this type of analysis on a regular basis, the real estate analysis. Your company doesn't engage in these types of activities, and they do; they're experts in this area. So your criticism would be because they do so many that they probably were just negligent in this particular one.
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I don't think it's so much the experience in real estate they have. I think it looks like they don't know how to use Excel. It's pretty basic stuff.
5 p.m.
Conservative
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
An error that then just carried forward, yes. I mean, it's the type of thing that you would expect a professional group charging many hundreds of thousands of dollars to avoid, that's all.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Okay, so then Deutsche Bank and BMO and RBC all have the same--
5 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
With reference to BMO and RBC, my issue with them is more an issue of the assumptions that they are making in terms of the cost of money to governments and the way in which they're doing the discounting, and those are areas in which I would say there is room for a variety of opinions. I think you could ask them how many studies of government purchases and sale of buildings have they done, and I think you'll find a very small set of those as well.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Yes. You speak about assumptions, and you've actually disclosed to us that your report was based on a significant number of assumptions because all the information wasn't provided to you. I'm wondering if you could table for our committee the full list of assumptions that you did make in your report. Would that be available to us? Could we get that from you?
5:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I think if they table the document and we're released, if we get a release from the minister, there's nothing to prevent us from letting them look for errors on our spreadsheets.
5:05 p.m.
National Executive Vice-President, Public Service Alliance of Canada
Yes, absolutely.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
No. I'm specifically looking, hear me correctly, for assumptions that you made on the information that wasn't disclosed to you to be fact. I'm wondering if you could provide a full listing of all of the assumptions that you made.
5:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I'm not quite sure I would be able to identify anything. We were trying to take the numbers as provided in the study and evaluate them.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
In your testimony you said that where you weren't able to find or have the exact information you made assumptions. I'm wondering if you could provide full disclosure of every last assumption, including the fact that you assumed that the government would buy the properties back. So every last assumption that you made, would you be able to provide those to the committee?
These other companies that did the analysis had full disclosure of all the information. You obviously didn't have all of the information. So could you then provide our committee with a listing of all the assumptions that you did make in your report? Would this be something that you would be willing to table at our committee?
5:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
I think it's something we can certainly do. I think it's done in our report to PSAC. We did two such reports--or actually three, I guess. As new information became available we would comment on that information, but the original document would give you a sense of the assumptions we're making, like the residual value.
5:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
If you want to hold me to it that's fine, but I'm very conscious that we want to make sure we're not violating any confidentiality agreement.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
There won't be any confidentiality problems if you were making assumptions, because those would be just your own.
5:05 p.m.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Informetrica
Isolated. You'd just like a list of 20 assumptions?
5:05 p.m.
Conservative