Evidence of meeting #11 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was business.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
And the new administrator is Mr. Rahim Jaffer. Is that correct?
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
I would like both of you to answer me each time. Is it true that your company has built a long-term relationship with government agencies?
Green Power Generation Corporation
Madam, the first thing to do is to read everything that appears on the website. It states there quite clearly that this refers to our experience as members of the company.
As for the reference to $3 billion, that relates to work carried out by myself, Patrick Glémaud, in the past. In the past, I was part and parcel of every one of the Government of Canada's environmental projects from 2002-2008. Most of the amounts involved amount to more than $3 billion. Therefore, names are mentioned such as Canadian Wind Power, the Municipal Renewable Energy Program, the Ethanol Expansion Program, and so on.
In terms of government connections, they refer to relationships I developed as a government lawyer.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
So, it is correct to say that you have truly built a long-term relationship with government organizations.
Mr. Jaffer, is it true, as is stated on the website, that your company facilitates consultations between the government and the private sector and that you closely monitor green energy policy and legislation?
Green Power Generation Corporation
No, not at all.
All we do is provide advice to people we have contacts with, if they want to get in touch with the government and know how to go about doing that. But we have never had any meetings or engaged in facilitation--
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
You have never shown anyone how to connect with the government?
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
And yet you were chair of the Conservative caucus, Mr. Jaffer. You are involved in business development for several different companies, which includes securing grants. Is that correct?
Green Power Generation Corporation
No.
It's true that I had relations with the current members of government, but to protect my wife and to protect the friendships I had, I made it clear before I started this business that I did not feel comfortable ever approaching them for anything, especially anything related to my business, and that I never wanted my wife in any conflict situation, so I refused to do that sort of work.
Green Power Generation Corporation
If I may add to that, this is not something unusual. If you look at most law firms in Ottawa and talk about--
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Mr. Glémaud, the question was not addressed to you. It was addressed to Mr. Jaffer.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Mr. Jaffer, if you have privileged relationships with members of the Cabinet—you are friends with Cabinet members by virtue of the fact that you are a former member of Parliament and former chair of the Conservative caucus—would it be correct to say that this is one way of making contact with these individuals and telling them about your business?
Green Power Generation Corporation
As I stated at the outset,
for me, my extent of discussions with anyone in the current government would be simply to tell them what sort of work we were doing, and that's where it would stop.
Most of my interactions with members would be, “How are things going? How is your family? How are things back home?” As the chair of caucus, I had intimate friendships in which one got to know about their families and got to work with them for close to a dozen years. It's not unusual that you'd have these kinds of discussions.
I also understand the importance of the measures we introduced when I was a member in the government--including the Accountability Act and the Lobbying Act--and I wasn't going to be in contravention of those.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Well let's talk about the steps that you seem to have taken to comply with the Lobbying Act. When you are friends with someone, it is possible for a person to say that he is doing business development in a given area and for a minister or someone else in his entourage to respond, in the course of the conversation, by saying that he will remember. Is that possible? No?
Green Power Generation Corporation
No, it's not, not if you're not looking for anything from government. If you're just telling them about your business and not looking for anything from government, there's no need to even have any expectations, and that's the way Mr. Glémaud and I operate our business. We don't look to government for anything for our work.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Well, then please explain why Mr. Gillani wanted to work with you. What did you have to offer him, someone who was part of your entourage? Once again, were you friends?
Green Power Generation Corporation
No. Ha, ha!
As I was saying, when you start up a new business, you have to take the time to decide whom you want to work with and explore strategies for working together. Over the course of the last year, we have focused on that a great deal.
If you are a businessman who is smart, you don't jump into bed with anyone immediately. You take the time to learn about them, and if you find there is no synergy, you leave them in good nature and you don't work with them. That is what happened with Mr. Gillani. We had the chance to meet with him; we had a few exploratory meetings and realized that our businesses were not convergent, and we didn't do any business with him.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Mr. Jaffer, I have followed somewhat the same path as you did, initially, because I, too, owned a small business which expanded at one point. I am sure you will agree with me that having political friends is very useful for doing business.
Green Power Generation Corporation
Not for me because, as I already stated, I never asked politicians for anything. I do want to stay in contact with my former colleagues, because I consider many of these people to be my friends. However, my business is completely separate.
Liberal
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Jaffer, we've heard some testimony with regard to your business dealings and the business you were working to set up. I don't think that I fully understand exactly the scope of your business, the nature of your business. I don't understand what exactly your business set out to do and to accomplish and what services you provided for your clients. I'm wondering if you could give some clarity to that for me.
Green Power Generation Corporation
I'll make it quick, because I think my partner would like to respond as well.
Our focus over the course of the last year, as we've been establishing this business, has been twofold. One is to source out potential environmental technologies, using the expertise of my partner, to see what stage they're in in their development, and to look at ways to help them commercialize, namely in new markets like China and India.
I won't mention the name of the company, but we're working with one currently to develop renewable energy in China with partners in China. That's a major part of our business. The other part of our business is to develop potential solar projects here in the province of Ontario, under the FIT program, which is something many people are involved in. We look for sites where we can develop solar projects, and then we put the financing together through private sources to be able to develop that.
We haven't developed one yet. We're in the process of developing one, and we hope to have one done by the end of the summer.
Green Power Generation Corporation
To add to this, our business is basically threefold. The first fold is us developing actual projects ourselves, like the solar project that we are doing, and the projects in China. In other instances, what we do basically is we do assessment, a feasibility study of technology. In the case of Mr. Nazim Gillani, the work that we were supposed to do for him was to do a feasibility study of a technology, but we didn't even get to that stage. We didn't receive any funds from him. We didn't enter into any contracts with him whatsoever.
