Evidence of meeting #40 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 sauvé.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Christian Paradis Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
I learned that when I saw it in the paper recently. What happened there, what he was told, I don't know. The only thing is that I was told...and I even received an e-mail from Mr. Prud'Homme a few days before the event saying things are going well and we have about 30 guests and it's still going on. And I showed up.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
You've testified here this morning that you only spent 10 minutes talking to Mr. Broccolini, and you indicated that it's only Mr. Sauvé who says it was longer than that.
In fact, when we had Mr. Glouberman and Ms. Gersovitz here, they actually testified, or one of them did, that you spent a fair part of the evening with Mr. Broccolini.
That sounds like more than 10 minutes to me.
Conservative
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
But whether it was 10 minutes or 40 minutes, you said you didn't talk about contracts, so what did you talk about? What did you have in common to talk about there?
Conservative
Christian Paradis Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
The first couple of minutes, or not even, he raised some grievance about the bidding process or tendering process, whatever. I just said, look, it's not appropriate to talk about it here. I referred him directly to the officials. Then after that, the discussion turned to general topic matters. I spoke about how my wife and I had a trip to Italy for our honeymoon, how I like Italian food, general stuff like that--
Conservative
Christian Paradis Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
No, but you asked me the question, so I'm going to tell you.
Conservative
Christian Paradis Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
We spoke about the political landscape in general, Conservatives, the breakthrough, the hopes, what we could do. It was a very general high-level discussion.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Thank you.
Let's turn to the coat, because your relationship with the person who has a contract with your department actually is relevant to these discussions, and therefore the coat comes into this--although it shouldn't have, right? There shouldn't be a connection between your coat and a contractor who happened to organize this.
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Why would you not have sought to be paid by your insurance company for your lost coat and for your loss?
Conservative
Christian Paradis Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
First of all, I found it very strange; it was an event with not even 40 people there. The restaurant was closed for that private event. I could not believe my coat was stolen.
I waited some days, and I asked to have a coat...through my staff. After that, when I saw there was nothing, I said, look, if that kind of thing happened in my riding....
I will continue in French.
If something like that had occurred in my riding, I would have been so embarrassed that I would have arranged to provide compensation to the minister. Where I'm from, we are proud people and it's embarrassing when things like that happen.
At the same time, I also wanted to pressure the organizers to get moving on this. I had my coat stolen, and yet no one was doing anything about it. When I saw that it wasn't working and that we were just going in circles, I decided to turn the page and forget about the coat.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Chris Warkentin
Excuse me, Mr. Regan, your time is up.
Madame Bourgeois, for five minutes.
Marc Lemay Bloc Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC
Good morning, Mr. Paradis.
I'd like to try and understand a number of things.
You were appointed Minister of Public Works in June, 2008.
Bloc
Conservative
