Evidence of meeting #37 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dyck.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Tyler Dyck  Chief Executive Officer, Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery
Clerk of the Committee  Mr. Paul Cardegna
Gerry Guitor  President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

5:25 p.m.

Voices

Oh, oh!

5:25 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Ms. Vignola.

We'll now go to Mr. Green for two and half minutes.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

Please do make sure to pass along condolences to your father on the loss of his beloved whisky.

Mr. Guitor, you raised some issues that I have flagged as being very concerning. While you are here at committee, I think it's important that, with candour, with whatever you are comfortable in expanding on.... I think it would be important for us to get an understanding of the nature of some of these probing calls: calls in which people talked about having connections, calls which may have been characterized as questionable conduct. Would you please take this round and just expand on that experience?

5:25 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

We started this in February 2020, and it was almost daily. We would get these calls from people, especially in March, when it was at its peak. Individuals would say, “I have a contact within procurement. They want 100,000 litres.” “They want 200,000 litres. I just sold 100,000 litres. Can you supply?”

Of course, we would say yes. We didn't know who was legit or who was illegitimate. I would say that it would happen almost daily. Like I said, I have a brother who worked on federal COVID-19, and I refused to use that, to put him at risk, because I do understand conflict of interest rules. I was just shocked.

I would suggest there may be a worthwhile—

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

I would suggest to you, sir, that in this committee or in public accounts, when a review is done.... I would imagine that in the next session, the next Parliament, when we come back, if we're able to, parliamentarians will be taking on the work of retroactively reviewing what happened.

Can I ask a question? Again, feel free to pass on the question. Did any of these come by way of email? At the appropriate time, if you were called back to committee to provide testimony more in depth on these types of exchanges, would that be something you would be comfortable doing?

5:30 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

Absolutely. I have emails and texts that I'd be happy to share. I'm not saying that these people weren't legitimate, but obviously—

5:30 p.m.

NDP

Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON

We are in a parliamentary committee, and I'm not trying to put you in [Technical difficulty—Editor]. What I think needs to happen, when we look back on this moment—because it is not just this we have heard this about; we have heard this in other areas of procurement—is make sure that the public has confidence in government that, in a global pandemic like this, when it really hits the fan, we have integrity within our procurement supply chains, and not simply the people who are well connected inside of political partisan circles or government circles....

Thank you for your candour. I appreciate that. I hope I'm given the opportunity in the future to come back to a committee you're on where we can get a little deeper into the question.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Thank you, Mr. Green.

Now we'll go to Ms. Sahota for five minutes.

5:30 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Chair, it's 5:31 p.m., and you started the meeting at 4:31 p.m. I was under the impression that we were finished at 5:31 p.m. Are we completing the round?

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

Yes, we're going to finish the round with Ms. Sahota, then Mr. Jowhari, and then we will be done. We've already checked to make sure we can go to the 45-minute point, and then we'll end at that point.

Thank you, Mr. Drouin. We've been keeping an eye on that part.

Go ahead, Ms. Sahota.

June 14th, 2021 / 5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jag Sahota Conservative Calgary Skyview, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank both of you for being here today and stepping up to the plate in a time of need. You exemplify true Canadian spirit—no pun intended—and you should be proud. I believe your testimony here today, in addition to the CBC article that came out in December, is very important. I hope it will further illuminate some very serious problems in the government's procurement practices that are consistently leaving Canadians in the dark, unless they happen to be close friends of the Prime Minister.

When the pandemic hit, he recognized the need for hand sanitizer and pivoted alcohol distilleries to meet the demand. Many distillers made and distributed sanitizer for free. While Canadian distillers were working around the clock disrupting their businesses and trying to fulfill a need for their fellow Canadians, the government was spending more than $570 million on hand sanitizer outside the country and later signed contracts with large companies here but ignored bids from these distillers who had already been producing for months.

In the CBC article, you were quoted as saying, “It really is like a sucker punch in the gut.” Can you explain what you meant by that?

5:30 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery

Tyler Dyck

At the heart of it, it just was not what I expected from the officials we elected. I'm not putting blame on any one person; sometimes it's just the system itself. The article was also in relation to the fact that we had just found out at the provincial level that, although the provincial government had asked me to go ahead and ask all of our distillers to step up and said it would pay for it, it decided as well to not do that. In turn, it also went and bought from outside of B.C.

It was almost a double sucker punch. At that time, I think it is fair to say that I don't think there's anyone here who could look at anyone else here and say they would not be disappointed. As a Canadian, they would expect to see this possibly south of the border or in another country but not here in Canada.

It is time for us to step up, just look at things and hopefully make a change that could make Canada a better place, a more caring place. Otherwise, we're going to lose individuals like all of our colleagues across Canada who are going to become more and more cynical. It is going to become more divided. You're going to have people not stepping up and doing the right thing.

I think there's a time when we need to have Canada's back.

5:30 p.m.

Conservative

Jag Sahota Conservative Calgary Skyview, AB

Thank you, Mr. Dyck.

Your company, Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery, spent over $200,000 donating sanitizers. You alluded to this before in your testimony and your statement saying that it cost the government twice as much, in terms of the money that was spent outside of Canada getting sanitizer while losing jobs here in Canada.

What would this local national contract have meant for distillers within the country in terms of jobs and our economy?

5:35 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery

Tyler Dyck

At that time, that was actually a misquote. We were well over $500,000 behind the eight ball at that time.

I think it's more than that. People wanted to do the right thing. It was a time when all of the distillers I talked to across Canada were just so overwhelmingly happy. They were getting supported by the community, just like my colleague said. We had people donating labels. That was a cost on top of all the donations that people were doing. They just really wanted to keep their staff working and doing the right thing. If we had told our staff that we weren't going to pay them, I bet half of them would have come in, because we had nurses and doctors lining up, crying with thanks and gratitude at picking up their sanitizer. It was the best of times for that pride in what we do.

There's no doubt it's a financial hit. I think we're going to see this for years to come. Our whisky stocks [Technical difficulty—Editor]. We have hundreds of barrels of whisky that will never be born because of this. That's going to affect our family distillery and all these other distilleries for really the next five, 10 or 15 years.

That's why I'm hoping we can work with the government to come up with the same excise strategy that promotes jobs and helps the industry become more robust moving forward.

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

Jag Sahota Conservative Calgary Skyview, AB

Mr. Guitor, do you have anything to add?

5:35 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

No, not really. I think my colleague said it quite eloquently.

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

Jag Sahota Conservative Calgary Skyview, AB

My next question is for you, Mr. Guitor.

You said that you couldn't get a contract with the federal government no matter how hard you tried. You explained some of the attempts you made. Could you elaborate on that? Did you receive any communication or explanation from the government as to why you couldn't get a contract?

5:35 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

Yes. Very early on—

5:35 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Robert Gordon Kitchen

I'm sorry, Mr. Guitor.

You finally get a chance to answer a question and I'm going to cut you off. I apologize. If you could maybe answer that one in writing, we would appreciate it. Thank you.

We'll now go to Mr. Jowhari for five minutes.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be splitting my time with MP Drouin.

Let me start by thanking both witnesses for their commitment to Canada and Canadians and for making sure that they kept all of us safe. Thank you very much.

I have a quick question. I'm going to follow the line of questioning that Ms. Sahota started.

Mr. Guitor, can you share with me whether you had the opportunity to work with the office of small and medium enterprises, which helps with soft landing for a lot of organizations with Public Services and Procurement Canada?

5:35 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

I did not.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Were you aware of the OSME?

5:35 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirit of York Distillery Inc.

Gerry Guitor

No, I was not.

5:35 p.m.

Liberal

Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON

Mr. Dyck, can you shed some light on that?

5:35 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery

Tyler Dyck

No, I cannot either, on that one.