Industry Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

[Witness-Témoin 1]

Once the approval happens, you still have to review financials and other details and structure it into a contract. Once the contract is structured, then you sign it. After that, there is oversight year over year for the funding. It can be anywhere from three to five years, and there is a minimum requirement of reporting every 12 months. You have to review the progress before you provide the next tranche of funding.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Before a project gets approval from the board, if there's a conflict of interest, what happens then? What's the process there?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

It depends on how the board decides, or that's what the process was. Up until the findings, how it worked was that if there was a direct conflict, then a board member would recuse themselves—again, employees were not aware of these conflicts until the end—versus if it was a perceived conflict, then board members would decide for themselves whether it was or wasn't.

The key thing to understand here is this: Even if a conflict of interest exists, what the other findings in RCGT show is that every single project for the last several years has been unanimously approved, with zero dissent. Even if you're leaving the room, and even if you're not reviewing it and have not involved any of your opinions, it doesn't matter. Once it gets to the project review committee and board, every single project ultimately gets approved. Again, it's not just that they're breaking conflict of interest; there's actually proof that they do not review and that they have zero oversight over some of the funding they have provided.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

It seems to me that during this entire process of organizations seeking funding and getting funding approval, with the oversight that happens after they get that approval, ISED is not really involved in any one of these steps. It seems like it's concentrated at the board.

[Witness-Témoin 1]

After approval.... ISED is not involved in any of this, because even the non-official.... They have no authority at the board level.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Okay. I think I'm out of time.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Actually, you still had a minute, but Mr. Perkins wants it.

I just have a question.

Would you mind telling us, sir, how long you worked at SDTC? If I understood correctly, it was two years. What years were they?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

It was across three years: 2020, 2021 and 2022.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

You mentioned in your testimony that most former employees of SDTC were under an NDA, but you are not. Is there a reason you're not?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

I wasn't fired.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Therefore, only those who are fired are under an NDA; those who just decided not to continue with SDTC are not under an NDA.

I have one more question, and I think this was asked by Mr. Lemire. Many times in your testimony, you said, “we”. Can you explain to me who “we” is?

[Witness-Témoin 1]

That's just a representation of the information. I'm representing the larger group of people who are part of this complaint, because it's current employees and former employees. That's where the “we” is coming from. That's what I mean by that, because certain issues aren't directly connected to me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I get it. Thank you very much.

Those were my very simple questions, sir.

That's all the time we have.

Thank you, colleagues, for a well-run meeting.

We were on time and within budget.

Thank you, sir.

Colleagues, see you tomorrow.

Without further ado, I would like to thank the interpreters, the analyst, our clerk and all the support staff.

The meeting is adjourned.