Industry Committee on June 5th, 2024

[Peter McArthur]

It's for scaling seed funding—series C and series D—and also for project finance funding. Those are all gaps. Whether it's fair to expect the Government of Canada to solve all of those problems, I don't know. However, those are gaps our industry feels when it goes to get funding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Arya. We're out of time.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Dubé‑Côté, I'd like to go back to our previous exchange to clarify my point.

You represent the cleantech industry in Quebec, and I think it's a fine industry, an industry of the future that must have financing. Obviously, a large part of the return on investment for companies in this industry is collective and ecological in nature, which in itself justifies public investment. As I was saying earlier, my assessment of the situation is that your industry is the first victim of what is happening today. If the rules for managing this fund had been stricter, Minister Champagne wouldn't have had to freeze funding and we wouldn't be in this situation today. I wanted to make that very clear.

Of course, you don't know how many projects could have gone ahead or how many jobs have been lost since they froze funding, because you don't have those figures to hand. However, I'd like to give you the chance to give us some examples of promising projects that could be delayed because of the mess of public funds mismanagement we are witnessing today.

[Isabelle Dubé-Côté]

I don't have the exact data on the actual effects, but, according to the survey we conducted of around 200 companies, which responded promptly, 10% of them had to dismiss some employees. We don't know in what proportion each company had to dismiss people, but we do know that job losses have occurred at 10% of them. So we feel and understand the effect of job losses at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, because there have been some in our sector too.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Of course, we've talked a lot about the carbon tax and the emissions trading system that exists in Quebec. We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but we also need innovation, and that innovation also needs venture capital.

If you had a sales pitch to present to me in the 30 seconds we have left, which projects would you describe as the most promising in Quebec, in your industry?

[Isabelle Dubé-Côté]

Locally, of course, we can think of the renewable energy sector and everything to do with energy, batteries and storage. This is a hot topic right now, and we're positioning ourselves very strongly in this area.

Next, we have a resource that is the subject of great interest abroad, and that is water. This is just my opinion, but I don't think we pay enough attention to everything to do with water treatment and preservation. When we go abroad and talk to colleagues from other cleantech alliances, we find that this topic is a priority for them.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garon.

Mr. Masse, you have the floor.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Bains, I've been made aware that, perhaps, the original selection before Annette Verschuren was Karen Hamberg, who was selected by you. Maybe it was changed later on, perhaps by the PCO. I don't know.

Can you confirm or deny whether that was the case?

[Navdeep Bains]

Thanks for the question, Mr. Masse.

I don't recall, again, the specific names that were brought forward at that time.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay. That's unfortunate.

I would like to move to Mr. Noseworthy.

The reason we're here is that the staff were not believed in two reports. You were in the boardroom. Did you not notice anything unusual with Annette Verschuren? Can you confirm or deny anything you saw, or did you report anything back to ISED?

[Andrew Noseworthy]

Sir, my experience was that Ms. Verschuren was a reasonable chair and that board meetings were conducted in a responsible way. The specific issues around conflict were presented, as I saw them—as this table heard before—by people recusing themselves. I saw no evidence of any of the specific concerns that were raised by the whistle-blower until such time as I saw the whistle-blower's report.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

That's hard to believe. You had a first-class ticket on the Titanic, but you didn't see any evidence in front of yourself.

Do you have, or did you have, a social relationship with Annette Verschuren or other board members? Have you attended any events outside the boardroom in a social manner—at a restaurant or at some occasion or special event?

[Andrew Noseworthy]

The only specific event I can recall, sir, was that, several years ago, Ms. Verschuren received an honorary degree from Memorial University of Newfoundland. I live in Newfoundland, and she invited me to the convocation with her.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Okay. That happens, so I don't want to cast aspersions on that. However, at the same time....

I'll just confirm: You never noticed a single concern or discussion related to conflicts of interest, even in the reports that were done internally, when you were attending all those meetings.

[Andrew Noseworthy]

Sir, ISED did not undertake any independent assessments of conflict of interest. We relied on the organization, which had a specific responsibility to do that. I relied on what I saw in the board meetings. Individual members recused themselves when they had a perceived or possible conflict of interest.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's very frustrating. We had a person in the room, and we had all this abusive behaviour. We're here because nobody believed the workers. That's why they're delayed on their funding. We still don't have a cultural resolution for what took place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Perkins, you now have the floor for five minutes.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's incredible. Mr. Noseworthy sat in the committee. The Auditor General pointed out that he was there 96 times when they declared a conflict of interest and five directors were feeding each other money.

My question is for Mr. Bains.

In 2016, you appointed Andrée Lise-Méthot to the board. That's perhaps the most corrupt of all of your corrupt appointments. Andrée Lise-Méthot has a company called Cycle Capital, a venture capital company. Companies she has ownership in had already received $101 million from the green slush fund before you appointed her to the board, in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act. Once on the board, she voted $42.5 million into those companies. Then, within the year—in the cooling-off period, when she was supposed to have no contact with them—she got another $8.5 million. Therefore, $150 million went to this one corrupt director you appointed.

Are you aware of any of that or, like everyone else, are you doing a Hogan's Heroes' Sergeant Schultz routine?

[Navdeep Bains]

Again, thank you very much for the question.

During my tenure, I recall making over 100 GIC appointments. There were a number of people appointed. I've talked about the process—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

In your opening, you said you were responsible for the appointments, yet you take no responsibility for any of them.

Were you aware that Steven Guilbeault was the lobbyist for Cycle Capital? In his time as the lobbyist, Cycle Capital received $111 million in grants from SDTC. In fact, in 2018 and 2019, he met 25 times with Industry—your office—and the PMO.

Did you ever meet with Steven Guilbeault on these projects before he was elected?

Let me guess: You don't recall.

[Navdeep Bains]

Well, if anyone met with me, there were clear rules and obligations around reporting—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Did you meet with him, yes or no?

I would think that if the current environment minister and a nominated candidate in the Liberal Party was in your office 25 times, you would recall those meetings.

[Navdeep Bains]

To the best of my recollection, I don't recall any such meetings. I would say that, again, this is an arm's-length organization that has a clear mandate of how it conducts itself—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Isn't it convenient that, in an arm's-length organization, it's Liberals who get appointed to the board through your neutral process?

By the way, I'm not sure what PMO appointments does with the many, many people who work in Trudeau's PMO appointments office who clear all these things and say to you that they are appointing these Liberals, even though they're corrupt and got $100 million.

Your current minister of Environment and this Liberal government lobby 25 times for the most corrupt of them all, and you say, “I don't remember”. How many times has it been? Since you've been before this committee, you've said 42 times that you don't remember.

Why would Rogers hire you if you can't remember anything about what you did here? You seem like the most ineffective person if you can't remember your time as a minister and these meetings.

It's not about the 100 appointments. When Liberal candidates are in your office lobbying on behalf of Liberal appointments, which you made, to get $150 million of taxpayer money funnelled into their companies to personally benefit from it, this type of Liberal corruption is, I guess, accepted in the Liberal Party.

Heck, why would I expect any different from you? You were the guy in charge of reducing cell phone rates and then left office and went to work for the biggest, most expensive cellphone company in the world. You are featherbedding your own corrupt approach to your career, so why would we expect that you would appoint anyone else who was any different?