Evidence of meeting #103 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you.
When you went through the analysis, what was the state of the Annette Verschuren Centre at Cape Breton University at the time, financially?
As an Individual
It would likely have gone bankrupt if it hadn't received federal funding.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
How much was the chair seeking for her ego project from the green slush fund?
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Wow, $2.2 million....
On that process, was the chair ever inquiring as to the state of the process and how it was going?
As an Individual
Yes. She indirectly emailed the executives or other parts of the organization to check in on the progress of the application.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
She was directly involved in trying to push it forward with management.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
On the analysis from the team that went to the board, what was the conclusion about whether or not it should be funded?
Conservative
As an Individual
That's how the organization works. The level of due diligence at SDTC is extremely high, but the ultimate authority on whether projects move forward to the project review committee is held by executives.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
The approving body, ultimately, is the board itself. Is that right?
As an Individual
It's the ultimate approving body, but before it goes to the board, it has to go to the project review committee, and before it goes to the project review committee, it has to be agreed upon by the executives.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Okay, the project review committee reviewed this....
As an Individual
They rejected it based on the conflict of interest, but they were still in favour of it for its technical—
December 11th, 2023 / 8:35 p.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
When it was rejected, were there any commitments that were made to the board chair as to what employees would do after that rejection?
As an Individual
Yes, they're all included in the board minutes of the project review meeting, where it was clearly stated that the SDTC employees would help the Verschuren Centre and move that application into other sources of funding.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Can you table those minutes with the committee?
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Let me get this straight. The project review committee employees were told, after SDTC rejected Annette Verschuren's $2.2-million request to fund her own centre, that you had to go to work to help Annette Verschuren find that money somewhere else in the government.
As an Individual
Using SDTC's reputation.... Just for everyone's reference, SDTC rejects applications all the time, and it references other organizations if they're not fit. There's an unprecedented time here when employees were asked to go and use that SDTC reputation to go to other places.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I'm sorry, Mr. Perkins; you are out of time.
Ms. Lapointe, you now have the floor for five minutes.