Evidence of meeting #42 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.
9:25 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
A few weeks before the election, around October 11, in the basement of the Notre-Dame-de-Pompei church, we did a...
9:25 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
There was an activity at the Il Ritrovo restaurant, a kind of low-price spaghetti dinner or something like that.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
The money that was collected at that cocktail party should ordinarily have gone into the Conservative Party's riding accounts.
9:25 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
All the money that was collected was always deposited into those accounts. Our events during 2007, 2008 and 2009 are all reported in the association's records. For the spaghetti dinner expenses, given that it was during the election campaign, they may be in the official agent's report.
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
At that event, had a minister or a senator been invited?
9:25 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
No. There was an MP who was supposed to come, but he couldn't make it. There was no one else, neither one. These were local activities for people who were part of...
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
According to that newspaper, you had also organized a fundraising activity at the Il Ritrovo restaurant where the minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn was present.
9:25 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
No, it wasn't at the Il Ritrovo restaurant. It was at the restaurant on rue Saint-Zotique...
9:25 a.m.
Bloc
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
That may be it, at the intersection of boulevard Saint-Laurent and another street whose name escapes me.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Do you remember approximately the date of that cocktail party?
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
I believe it was just before the Christmas holidays in 2007.
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
To the association. It's in the report.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
And yet when we look at Election Canada's records, we don't find any trace of that money.
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
It is there, along with the names of the donors.
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
I'm sorry, but it's there.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Who communicated with Mr. Blackburn for him to go to that activity?
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
It was myself, through his office.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc
Diane Bourgeois Bloc Terrebonne—Blainville, QC
Mr. Prud'Homme, you tell me that you met Mr. Paradis and you communicated with Mr. Blackburn. Do you have privileged access to Conservative ministers?
9:30 a.m.
Gilles Prud'homme
No.
As an activist, I had known Jean-Pierre Blackburn since the 1980s. When I met him, I asked him whether he could be there if we organized a fundraising activity and he said he could. On Saint-Jean-Baptiste day, we went to his activity where he had the Prime Minister in Roberval with the future candidate, Denis Lebel, who was the mayor at that time.
When you are involved in political activity, you cross paths with a lot of people.
9:30 a.m.
Bloc