Government Operations Committee on June 17th, 2010

[Rahim Jaffer]

I travelled to Cuba on a personal trip. It was like a stag. It was for a friend. I read reports of something about Castro. I think the closest we came to Castro was a picture in the hotel of the president. Other than that, I was surprised to hear that story.

As I said, I qualified it with the chief of staff at the time and said, “I know that I won't only be travelling on this passport with my wife, so should I not obtain another passport?” She confirmed and basically validated to me, “No, you don't have to. You can just travel on this passport.”

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

So Panama and Belize?

[Rahim Jaffer]

No, I never went to Panama.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Belize?

[Rahim Jaffer]

Belize, when I was elected.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Calandra, you have one minute left. Thank you.

[Paul Calandra, Conservative, Oak Ridges—Markham, ON]

Can you understand the difficulty we're having? You were a member of Parliament for 12 years. We have to assume you understand the seriousness of the committee. It's very difficult for some of us to understand how you could not have been prepared on April 21, or didn't take it seriously enough to prepare on April 21. There are a number of inconsistencies we have. We know that the business card was used, maybe once. E-mails were sent, maybe inadvertently, but they were sent. Meetings in office: personal, not business. You used passports, thought the rules were a bit different, but didn't check into them.

Can you understand the very difficult time we're having with all of this, with all the testimony you provided, the inconsistencies? And after so many years of government, previous governments where Canadians expected a higher standard, where we expected a higher standard, would you agree that you failed the test?

[Rahim Jaffer]

I think the party I'm seeing before me, the Conservative Party, isn't the same party I joined when I was a Reformer back in 1997. We stood for democracy, we stood for freedom. The way my wife has been treated by your party and your government doesn't represent anything I've ever seen and that I worked for during the time I was an MP. You want to talk about disappointment? That's disappointment. She isn't even allowed to run in her own nomination because the party has said she's kicked out. The Prime Minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Mr. Calandra.

[Rahim Jaffer]

—called a process to say that she could clear her name, and then proceeds to kick her out of the party. You call that democracy? I don't understand. I don't even recognize this party anymore.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you, Mr. Calandra.

We now go to Ms. Siobhan Coady for five minutes.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you very much.

I want to go back to a question I ended off with earlier. It was about something you said to my colleague. You said, “I had an e-mail address as assistant to Helena Guergis. The staff knew that I had this address. They were e-mailing me on this address on occasion, including the Prime Minister's Office.” You said, “I received e-mails from the Prime Minister's Office.” Who did you receive e-mails from in the Prime Minister's Office and what was it pertaining to?

[Rahim Jaffer]

Usually it was personal. My cousin works as the advance for the Prime Minister, so she often contacts me on that e-mail address to ask how I'm doing.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

So these are personal e-mails to Helena Guergis' assistant's email.

[Rahim Jaffer]

That's because they knew that was one they could use in order to either get in touch with me through Helena's office or directly.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Okay.

So who else was there in the Prime Minister's Office? You gave an example of your cousin. I'd like to know who else and what it was pertaining to.

[Rahim Jaffer]

I have friends. I have a former assistant who worked in my office during the time I was elected. His name is Renze Nauta. I don't know his function now; I haven't been in touch with him recently. He would sometimes send me a note on that address.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

I'm going to be quite specific, Mr. Jaffer. Did you receive anything from the Prime Minister's Office concerning any of the proposals or any of the issues concerning them?

[Rahim Jaffer]

No, absolutely not. I made that clear in my first testimony, that there was never any—

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

In your first testimony there were a lot of “inconsistencies”, as you called them.

[Rahim Jaffer]

There were, but this wasn't one of them.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

You have not supplied this committee with any of your e-mails from the Prime Minister's Office.

[Rahim Jaffer]

That's because they weren't related to the mandate of the study of this committee; otherwise, I would.

[Siobhan Coady, Liberal, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

The mandate of this committee was to look at all the green funding. So far we've had to look at other things, because of the inconsistencies in your testimony.

[Rahim Jaffer]

The mandate of this committee seems to be everything under the sun, but I think that—