He did.
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.
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
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Was Simon Kennedy aware of the plan outlined by Mr. McConnachie in May, and was he at those briefings?
As an Individual
He was, and he spoke to him directly on multiple occasions in May and June.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Is that contrary to the testimony that he gave today?
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a question up front.
Will you table—it'll be public on the website as evidence—the 30 hours of tapes that you did with the CFO of ISED, as well as the pertinent documents?
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That's great.
I'd like to explore one thing on the COVID payments.
You said that they weren't all supposed to get the same amount, which is the excuse that's used for voting themselves $3.7 million over two meetings. Why was that? Why wouldn't they give that to everybody?
As an Individual
I can't say for certain, because I don't know how the executives thought about it, but what happened in that second COVID payment isn't just that everyone got 5%. There was a secondary decision made, whereby certain companies that were the most financially successful were suddenly given 10%. What they continue to state is that the second COVID payment was, again, made as it pertains to companies and the whole portfolio of SDTC, which was having issues with financing and issues with COVID.
However, what actually was happening was that they had information that clearly showed that companies had long enough runways that no financing was required, yet they then created new criteria that gave them an additional 10% instead of the 5% that everyone had, and that included board-member companies.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Those would be companies like MineSense—which Andrée-Lise Méthot has a financial interest in—which got 10%.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Did you and did the team do an analysis of these companies, of whether or not they actually needed any COVID relief cash?
As an Individual
There was analysis done on both the funding requirements, but even more, there was also analysis done—which the executives wanted employees to do—that was related to the contribution agreement. By this point, there were enough federal programs that existed that companies were actually being overfunded to the point where they were breaking the eligibility of what their funding requirements are.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
For example, MineSense, which got a 10% bump-up, had 100 months of cash available, at the time of the analysis, I think, so it didn't actually need any cash to get through COVID.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
There are other companies like that, then—that directors have a financial interest in—that had excess cash but still got cash.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If the witness could answer this very succinctly, because the time is obviously limited, that would be great.
If an organization seeks to get funding.... Can you just quickly walk us through the process of what the steps are, from seeking that funding to approval?
As an Individual
To get funding, you can submit or reach out through SDTC's website. SDTC has a continuous intake function whereby you can apply, and then there is a structured process that reviews the application on multiple lines of inquiry before it, then, officially takes it into a full due diligence.
The full process from application to potential approval is several months, at minimum.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Would you just walk us through what the due diligence step involves?
As an Individual
There are different due diligence steps, depending on the fund. That's one of the findings of RCGT's report. The regular and required due diligence process has governance functions in it. Once a project is taken into full due diligence, it provides hundreds of documents related to its financials and its technicals, and all of that is reviewed by multiple employees. You also have to get external third party experts on the business and technical side, all of whom then have to provide a recommendation, which is what's used to take the company to the board.
Now, within the ecosystem fund and the seed fund, none of that happens, and that's one of the findings that has shown that all of this process has been completely deviated from, because we're not even following the most basic level of due diligence for certain funds.
Liberal
Iqwinder Gaheer Liberal Mississauga—Malton, ON
Once the board grants the approval, is that it, or are there more steps after that?
