Evidence of meeting #18 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 gillani.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
It was when you first met. Did he mention that he had already been the chair of the Conservative national caucus? Don't you remember that?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
I don't remember that. I do remember him saying that he had been a member for 12 years in Edmonton and that he had lost his seat in the last election.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
When did you find out that he was the husband of the member of Parliament of a riding where you have one of your three properties? Did he tell you right away that his wife Helena Guergis was a minister and a member of cabinet? Is that when you found out?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
Yes. He had said that he wasn't but his wife still was a member of Parliament. He didn't say she was a cabinet minister. He just said she was a member of Parliament.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
She's a member. Okay.
Did you see Rahim Jaffer as a lobbyist who could help you to get funding from the federal government? Was that your take on things when you met with Rahim Jaffer?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
No. Let me make you understand.
I didn't even know we had lobbyists here. That may sound funny to you people, but it's the truth. Most Canadians don't know that. You live in Ottawa, but we live miles away and we don't know. Until I saw this on television I really didn't understand. I hear about American lobbyists, but I never hear much about ours. I didn't really know that.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
It never came up. I never thought of it, not for a moment.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
But did he introduce himself as someone who could help you? During the meeting, you surely did not just talk about the weather. You are not the type of person who could stop any random person on Sparks Street in Ottawa to ask whether they could help you to get funding from the federal government.
Forget the question about lobbying. You said it very well: the average Canadian does not know what a lobbyist traditionally does. Did he introduce himself as someone who could open doors for you to the federal government, the Conservative government, to get money?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
At this meeting, the meeting with Gillani and him, we were not... We came into this and he came with his cousin to be introduced. Gillani didn't know him, and I believe that. That day they met for the very first time. So they were doing their talking and we left. They took off somewhere because they went off to that club they used to go to. They left. But another group came in and sat down with them; they were promoting as well. And we were out of there. So we did not get... I did the talking, to tell everyone at the table what we did. I described what we did, how we do it, technologically how it works and why. It's all microbial. We don't use accessed heat from anywhere else; we do it with microbes. It was all the technical things, because I'm the technical guy, and that's what we were talking about mostly.
Remember, we were dealing with this guy Gillani. We'd been working with him since sometime in July. On the 23rd of September, we ended it. So that was the window. So whatever he was doing with him, I have no idea, nor did anyone tell me. It was Gillani who asked us to give them the information about across Canada, from city to city, how much would there be required to do it.
Later on in a conversation, Mr. Jaffer gave me information for the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and the information he gave me wasn't quite correct. He said to me there was funding there for municipalities. I'd done Whistler for the Olympics, and Whistler didn't have any money. After the Olympics they were broke. But they wanted one more tunnel. I had been out to see them, but they didn't have the money. So he believed that the federation had money to give them. So he gave me the number of a man there. I phoned his secretary, who arranged a conference call with him and another gentleman, a French Canadian gentleman. We talked, and he set me straight on what it was. It was that there is money available at a lower interest rate, but it's not a gimme; you don't get it for nothing. He had it wrong. I didn't get any further because I was still talking with Whistler.
That's the information he gave me about Ottawa, and it wasn't quite correct.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
My attention was distracted from the list of questions I had prepared.
So then they left to go to a bar. But you, did you go to that bar? No.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
Let me tell you, I've never been to a club like that in my life. I'm married 53 years. You wouldn't get me in there with a gun at my head.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
But why do you refer to it as “a club like that”? It could have been a place... Why do you now talk about it like this? Was that discussed at the meeting?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
They didn't invite me to the club. I'll tell you why they didn't invite me. You may get a laugh out of it.
At the first board meeting I had with Gillani, he came in and he said before he started... He got up and said, “I am a Muslim. I'm an Ismaili Muslim.” And I said to him, “Well I'm a Christian, and it's the Ten Commandments, not the ten suggestions in here”, because I didn't like that. That's the way it started. So he wasn't going to take me to a club like that.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Yes, but sometimes the flesh is weak, isn't it? We agree.
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
Okay. To summarize, the main objective for your business was to find—
Bloc
Michel Guimond Bloc Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC
You were looking for federal funding for your business. Is that correct?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
We have been always looking for funding for projects. We have projects in the United States. We have nothing in Canada at the moment, but we may have shortly. We haven't done a lot in Canada, but we've done a lot in the United States. It's easier to get one in the United States than it is in Canada. So there's venture capital, which Gillani said he was. He is in a way, I suppose, but he's not my kind of guy. I don't like the way he operates. He's not my kind of person. You have to have a likeness with somebody to do business with them. If I don't like somebody, I'm not going to do business. I don't care who they are, what they've got, because I have principles.
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
Anyway, no money came from that. We get funding from overseas, from London, New York, and places like that. We don't get it from here. We've never gotten anything from here.
Liberal
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wright, for being here this afternoon. We appreciate your time.
You just said, referring to Mr. Gillani, you don't like the way he operates. I'm just wondering if you could expound on that. I think people are generally curious about this individual. We had him here as a witness, and I think your impressions of him in the business world would possibly help us establish his credibility as well as some of the things that he said. Could you just maybe elaborate on your comment a little bit?
Chairman, Wright Tech Systems
I'm a very prompt person. I was here two hours early today from Toronto. I can't stand a person who keeps saying “I'll be there”, “I'll do it”, but never does it. I hate that. It just got so bad that he was... I would phone him, because he would say something, and when I wanted it in writing, it came back different. It didn't come back the way he said it. It never did. He was moving the goal posts. He was looking for more and more share in the deal, and he wanted to take over. I never would do that. I run my show. I've done it for forty years. So he and I didn't see eye to eye. I just said, guys, it's over. I sent him a text message. Actually, my son sent him a text message on my phone, because I don't know how to text message--I'm old.
