Evidence of meeting #36 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 know.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
I would be surprised and very disappointed if that were the case. You'd have to question him, but I don't see how a conversation with a person necessarily leads to a contract being awarded to that same person.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
I'm going to tell you why. It's because, as minister, you had an important role to play in Montreal's future. This was a connection for your political party and the government. That's the first step.
At the time, you had a political minister for all of Quebec. That was Lawrence Cannon, I imagine. You discussed political matters. There were fundraisers. You were rightly working to get elected, and people came to meet you. I see two occasions, in 2005-2006 and in 2008. Important people supported you, in particular Pierre Karl Péladeau, which is interesting, and Réal Raymond. Here we're talking about Réal Raymond from the National Bank, I imagine?
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Yes.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
There's also Hubert T. Lacroix. He is the current president of CBC/Radio-Canada? Yes? That's interesting. You were well connected.
Mr. Fortier, there were also people from the financial sector. We may wonder whether people told you that major contracts were coming up and that they would like to do business with the government. People have previously told you that, haven't they?
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Never.
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Never, Mr. Coderre.
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
No one.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
At the fundraisers, over a little piece of celery, someone said "Thanks for coming," and that was all?
9:35 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Mr. Coderre, you know; you've done so many more of them than I have. With regard to your question on contracts, no one came to see me at a cocktail party, telling me that he was giving me money and that, in return, he was expecting... If someone had asked me that question, I would immediately have answered that it was out of the question.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
Michel Gaucher, formerly of Ivanhoe and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, is a real property expert. If he came to see you, it would be normal to ask you some questions. I expected you to tell me that he had talked to you about that, that you had asked him not to bother you with it, that you wanted to know nothing about it, that that was not your role, that it was MERX... However, that's not the case. In response to my first questions, you said that you had had nothing to do with that, that you had had nothing to do with it. In response to the question from my colleague Mr. Lemay, you said you had received an update every two months.
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Yes.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
You were a political minister and you had a colleague who had been your assistant for 10 years. So you had a privileged relationship. It is normal to protect one's minister and for him to have told you that something was going on and that you had to pay attention to it. Perhaps he heard some things that made it necessary for him to protect you. In the context of all those contracts totalling $5 billion and concerning the renovations to the House of Commons and Parliament buildings, you never heard that people were involved in that, that there might be problems and that red flags would be raised? No one ever told you anything?
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
No.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Denis Coderre Liberal Bourassa, QC
What were you told in the context of those updates? My friend mentioned officials, but most of them weren't there at the time. I'm relying on you, since you were there.
How do you explain why you were aware of nothing, why you were completely isolated? And yet you know that the first thing to do, both in order to orient yourself and under the Federal Accountability Act, is to ensure that no one has his hand in the cookie jar. And we're talking about large amounts here.
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
First, I never said I knew nothing. I'm talking about the award of that contract, Mr. Coderre. We may not be able to agree, but let's at least agree on the ground rules. The updates always concerned contract performance, the moving of employees, the buildings that were leased, lease problems, the fact that we thought we had four floors, but that we would only have three, what we were going to do with a group of members, and so on.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
No, not in the case of this one.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Maybe I'll now have an opportunity to ask the questions.
I guess this would be one of my questions: do you have anything to add to this whole debate about the West Block renovation? Obviously, your answers today are absolutely consistent with those that we've heard before from people who either work within the department or people who have worked on this project or people who are remotely connected, some very tenuously, to this project.
Do you have any additional information as it relates to this, and the people who were contracted to do the work, that we haven't heard from other people?
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Listen, as I said, this was, and I suspect still is, a huge endeavour involving significant logistics. When I became minister, this project had already begun several years earlier. I was not the initiator of this. The work around the Hill had begun several ministers before me, and I suspect will continue several ministers after Ms. Ambrose, because the scope of the project is huge.
The minister gets a briefing on the scope of the project, but we don't dive, nor should we, into who the folks are who are going to work on the roof, and on who the guys are who are doing the cement work, and who's going to deliver the trees in front, and who's going to be providing furniture for the new buildings. This is just not the way it should be run. The department has qualified people to do that. If there is a problem, it will obviously be elevated to an ADM. If it's significant, it'll go up to the DM. And if the DM can't resolve it, he'll bring it to me.
But I don't remember us ever having a discussion around a particular contract that was causing grief to the department around the Hill renovations. It's not to say that the project itself wasn't an issue--it is, because it's huge--but there were no significant issues brought to my attention relating to one particular contract.
9:40 a.m.
Conservative
Chris Warkentin Conservative Peace River, AB
Well, that's absolutely consistent with what we've heard from the department. The assistant deputy minister has made it absolutely clear that any decision as it relates to the contracting of the work on West Block was undertaken within the department and was undertaken at his level or below his level.
9:40 a.m.
Former Minister of Public Works and Government Services, As an Individual
Yes, and I would add this. Monsieur Coderre says that all the people who were there then have since left--and I take you at your word--but I left, and I'm here today, so why don't you convene them and ask them? Maybe you should do that. Why not?
