Evidence of meeting #135 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 sdtc.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
It was sent to all committee members and it's in the digital binder, so I would rather we proceed, if that's okay, but you gave the gist of it, Mr. Turnbull.
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I gave notice of a motion that I'd like to move, which will allow MP Turnbull to read the letter into the record. That's how kind I am to my Liberal colleagues.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
With that in mind, I move the following motion:
That, in relation to the committee's ongoing study of conflict of interest breaches at Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), and given that
(i) Minister François-Philippe Champagne has issued a press release stating that “effective immediately, SDTC will also resume funding, under a reinforced contribution agreement with ISED, for eligible projects”; and given that
(ii) the SDTC whistle-blower has told the public accounts committee that “new project approvals have now started” under these agreements;
the committee therefore orders SDTC and ISED to produce copies of each reinforced contribution agreement signed since June 4, 2024, without redactions, in both official languages, within 14 days following the adoption of this motion, in order to monitor the department's compliance with the Auditor General's recommendations.
The reason is that earlier last week, the whistle-blower gave information about the old secretive contribution agreements, which have not been released publicly yet, or ever. They're not available anywhere. Those are the agreements between the industry department and the green slush fund as to what they can and cannot spend money on. Part of the Auditor General's report dealt with the fact that $58 million was spent outside of those contribution agreements. I believe we need access to more than those contribution agreements.
The whistle-blower testified not only that the new, interim, part-time, temporary board overseeing the fund had started to issue money again to companies; he also said the contribution agreements have been amended retroactively to include within the contribution agreement all of the projects that were previously illegal and outside of the contribution agreement. It's taking an eraser and trying to get rid of the old contracts that SDTC and ISED had agreed to and are refusing to release publicly, and we need to see this as soon as possible.
With regard to these agreements and having them out within 14 days, one presumes they're already written, since they've been done. The minister said that funding would start immediately. We need to make sure, since there has been a lot of discussion about repayment and payment of the money. The now-retired deputy minister—there are a lot of people retiring around SDTC—said that some of this money should be repaid, as have other parties at the committee. This morning the NDP were questioning and asking in the public accounts committee discussions why the money wasn't being repaid.
I would say that in order to ensure these companies.... We know that 82% of the board members who received this money were conflicted and that another $58 million was illegally spent outside the contribution agreements. This committee needs to know, and Parliament needs to know, which companies that received that money are getting money once again. In other words, nothing has changed.
We don't know that—it may have changed—but we got rid of the old SDTC process. Apparently, the new SDTC process is not really that much different from the old SDTC process, except for one thing. If you go to the SDTC website, which I did a year and a half ago—which started this whole thing off—the old SDTC was very transparent. Every quarter, they updated an Excel spreadsheet there of every grant that SDTC had given out, with a great deal of detail about when and how and the industry the company was in. Since its founding in 2001, every single transaction was available.
In this open and transparent process we have now under the minister, there's actually no public list available anymore about what SDTC is doing in giving out money. In fact, we've had testimony from the president of the National Research Council, where SDTC eventually will be housed before it gets again punted to another organization after the National Research Council has it. At the National Research Council, they don't actually publish absolutely any of their grants.
They put out a quarterly report that says that they spent so much on this program and so much on that program, but they do not put out a list of where that money goes. The organization was actually disclosing what they were spending the billion-dollar Liberal green slush fund on, so you could do the work and find out which directors were feathering their own beds, as it were, to the tune of $390 million, according to the Auditor General. Now, with the minister's open and transparent process, you can't even do that. You can't even see that on SDTC's website, on the NRC website, on anybody's website. It's a super-secret society. It looks to me like they're just trying to cover up everything that they're doing now.
We're asking for the basics here, which are the contribution agreements that have been altered in order to make bad wrongdoings positive, and also to understand what the new temporary interim board—before they punt it over to NRC—is actually spending money on now. That's the purpose of this motion. We need to continue to get to the bottom. It is one of the reasons I'm concerned about the previous motion we passed, and thank you for allowing the statement of the obvious to be put in, which is that the committee can interrupt deliberations on Bill C-27 if it deems it necessary, because we have to get to the bottom of this billion-dollar scandal.
I know that the government doesn't want us to do that, and I can understand that, since their appointees were found to be in conflict of interest. The chair was found.... I know it said two times in the Ethics Commissioner's report, but they also admitted in committee that the two were rolled up. It was 24 times that the chair hand-picked by the Prime Minister, Annette Verschuren, who—and I will introduce the subject so that MP Turnbull can introduce the letter—three times in committee when I asked her, said that she did not apply. I made it very clear and very simple. I asked, “Who contacted you?”
She said that Minister Bains had contacted her twice.
I asked, “Did you apply?”
She said no.
I asked if she was sure, because both the PCO and Minister Bains said that they only operate from lists of people who had applied.
She said that no, she had not applied. In fact, in the ultimate arrogance we often see from her, she said that she had never applied for anything in her life. It all lands in her lap.
Miraculously, a week after PMO had a chance to talk to their hand-picked appointee, her lawyer—not her—sent a letter saying something like, “Oh, I guess I was wrong when I said three times that I've never applied for anything in my life, including this job,” which she now remembers. She had her lawyer—not her—write a letter to the committee saying something to the effect of, “Oops, I said three times that I didn't apply, that I'm too important in Canada to apply for anything. Everybody comes to me and asks me to do things, including the Liberal government.”
I actually believe her original testimony, because it's consistent with what the former president, Leah Lawrence, said when she was before the hearings in committee on this. She said that the minister's office had directed specifically that Annette Verschuren be appointed over the objections of management of SDTC, who said that we cannot appoint somebody for the first time in our history who is conflicted. The Prime Minister's Office, through the Privy Council Office and Minister Bains, proceeded anyway, and Annette Verschuren admitted that they had hand-picked her. They moved outside the normal process. That is all—
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
—part of my motion and why we need to get to the bottom of this.
Liberal
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'm sorry, Mr. Perkins.
Can we maybe release our officials? I don't think we're going to get to the subject that they're here for, even if we finish this.
I'm sorry to interrupt. I apologize. It's just that they're sitting here. They sat here yesterday, and I'm just wondering whether we should let them go.
I apologize again.
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I hope they didn't sit here yesterday, Mr. Masse. That was Sunday.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Yes, it was the last meeting.
We still have an hour and 15 minutes to go. I'm not sure we're going to be debating this motion.
I'm looking around the table. Are you comfortable if we deal with the motion Mr. Perkins has brought forward and that we forgo the time of the committee if there are no other motions and the witnesses are not here?
Conservative
