Thank you, Mr. Chair and thanks to the committee members for welcoming me today.
My name is Guy Ouimet, I am originally from Montreal and still live there. I am an industrial engineer graduated from the École Polytechnique of the University of Montreal. I hold an MBA from McGill University and am certified by the Institute of Corporate Directors.
After starting my career within multinationals, I quickly moved towards a role as an industrial investment professional having worked for most of my career in the fields of venture capital, private placement, project financing and mergers and acquisitions. In this capacity I acted as a senior executive for the Société générale de financement du Québec for 10 years before launching my private practice in the form of a boutique investment bank.
This practice has developed over the years based on my multi-sector and technological expertise, particularly in the fields of energy, metals and minerals, chemicals and petrochemicals, the automotive industry, other manufacturing sectors and, among other things, the evolution of these sectors towards the decarbonization of the economy.
I have had institutional and government funds as clients as well as numerous private companies for 25 years. I participated in the setting up of multiple investment projects and transactions. Among other things, I acted as an external advisor for SDTC between 2006 and 2014. My combined expertise in multi-sector venture capital and the setting up of large-scale projects was then called upon, particularly with regards to the NextGen Biofuels fund of SDTC for which $500 million was allocated to SDTC in 2007 by the federal government then in power.
Since 2020, I have been exclusively a corporate director and act on six boards of directors and various committees.
Having taken a distance of 4 years from SDTC and a new management being in place, I joined the SDTC board of directors on November 8, 2018, following an appointment resulting from my application to a recruitment process conducted by the Governor in Council which lasted over a year. Having no political affiliation and having requested no references except those required by the validation procedures during the recruitment process, I have declared all my background and skills, including my previous role as an advisor for SDTC. At the end of the Governor in Council process, I was recruited based on my expertise to contribute to the SDTC Board of Directors.
In addition to being a member of the board of directors, I am a member of the Project Review Committee, or PRC, and the Governance and Nominations Committee. Appointments to committees were subject to the approval of the Chair of the board, in this case Mr. Jim Balsillie at the time of my appointment.
During the Governor in Council recruitment process, I declared a conflict of interest with a company which I had advised, and which had been approved for SDTC funding prior to my appointment to the board. Once appointed I discussed this conflict of interest with Mr. Gary Lunn, then Chair of the SDTC Board Governance Committee. He advised me and I subsequently followed his recommendations as required, all within the framework of already established governance.
Since my appointment to the board, I have periodically declared all real, apparent or potential conflicts, I have not had access to the files in question and have recused myself from any decision relating thereto.
Regarding the emergency COVID‑19 payment to businesses by SDTC, as already indicated, the SDTC Board referred to the Osler legal opinion which was based on the prior declaration of conflicts of interest, the urgency of the situation and the universal nature of the measure for which no company benefited from individual treatment. Like the rest of the Board directors, I acted in good faith, in accordance with this opinion.
SDTC's mission appeals to me in the sense that it is absolutely relevant for the conversion of the Canadian economy towards decarbonization as demonstrated by its track record over more than 20 years. The relevance and effectiveness of SDTC have been recognized on several occasions through periodic performance audits. Furthermore, cleantech entrepreneurs praise its contribution and venture capitalists consider a SDTC contribution as prior validation for their own investment. These facts are well known in the industry across Canada.
When joining the board, I noted the quality of SDTC's governance, as well as the stature and reputation of my fellow directors. As a finance professional and corporate director, this is an essential prerequisite that I have always applied before joining each of the 21 boards of directors on which I have participated in my career.
I am available to answer your questions.
