Industry Committee on Sept. 23rd, 2024

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the two speeches by my honourable colleagues, but I do question their motivation. Just an hour ago, they were saying that time's up and it's time to go to an election right away, so I question whether they are even going to want to look at those documents if they are produced.

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

Release them and we'll see.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Perkins said something interesting about trusting the words of the officer of Parliament. There is another officer of Parliament: the Ethics Commissioner. I was at a meeting this morning at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, as Mr. Perkins well knows; he was there. The Ethics Commissioner cleared a board member, and Mr. Perkins proceeded to attack him, regardless of being an officer of Parliament—a non-partisan officer of Parliament—and he proceeded to attack him.

I'm questioning what the rationale is. What is the motivation behind this? Is it that their fundraising numbers aren't high enough? Are they going to launch a video on Rebel News and fundraise even more off this issue? I'm just questioning the modus operandi behind this—

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

It's truth.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

—because this committee is going to be seized with this question again, even though it was seized with it before.

Mr. Perkins said that we're not done at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts with this particular study. It's going on and on, despite the fact that the Auditor General has looked at this particular issue, that the Ethics Commissioner has looked at this particular issue, that there's been a third party investigation by McCarthy Tétrault and that there's been a third party investigation by RCGT.

Are we going to have investigations of investigations? Where do they see this ending? Do they want political interference in this decision-making, or should we let public servants operate within a governance framework that we've created? I'm just wondering.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Garon has the floor, to be followed by Mr. Masse.

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

The Auditor General’s reports on SDTC were worrisome. Today, we had Ms. Annette Verschuren and other witnesses before us. There are indeed several reasons to be worried. Furthermore, I think we should recognize that Minister Champagne did, to a certain extent, acknowledge his responsibility. It is true that we were lied to. In any case, when we had the former minister, Mr. Bains, before us, I think we were lied to. I think we were unable to get the truth during that testimony. Evading questions and not giving answers do indeed worry me. However, the current minister did indeed suspend funding, transfer responsibility for it to the National Research Council of Canada, or NRCC, requested an internal investigation, and so on.

That is why I think the motion—I’ll come to the amendment later—has merit. Insofar as the current minister took responsibility and reestablished funding in another form, I think it is legitimate for the committee to look into new contribution agreements concluded since June. I may move an amendment, but I think the motion is valid.

I am now looking at the amendment. When it comes to the issue of documents, it goes back a long way. I am not saying it’s without merit. I am not saying that looking into those documents is not a task for a parliamentary committee. However, to a certain extent, I concur with the analysis by my colleague, Mr. Drouin: committee time is supposed to be valuable. Its time is limited, and the more limited it is, the more valuable it is. In this context, my impression remains that, regarding the documents dated from 2018 to 2023 in the amendment proposed by my colleague, Mr. Généreux, it may be premature. I think we would be duplicating what the Standing Committee on Public Accounts is doing.

I have not yet decided how I’m going to vote. I do not want to presume to know anyone’s intentions. However, I think we understand the analysis up to 2023. Even today, we received a document revealing that Ms. Verschuren changed her version. I don’t know how many times a week she changes it. She certainly changes her version of the facts every time she comes before the committee. I think the work up until 2023 is the Auditor General’s responsibility. If we want to look more deeply into it here, at Parliament, that falls under the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garon.

Mr. Masse has the floor, followed by Mr. Turnbull.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I can understand why the motion's been put forward, but there are a couple of things I'm thinking of. First of all, public accounts is doing work on this. I had to fill in last week on that. It's almost as though we have a two-headed monster right now with regard to dealing with it. It's taking a lot of resources. I'm wondering whether it would be more appropriate for this to be there at the public accounts committee now, since from what I saw at the meeting I was at, they're actually delving into it quite substantially, more than we are here. That happened before when some of this was at, I think, the ethics committee. I'm sorry if my memory is hazy on this, but we've been going around this issue for a while.

Something I'm really worried about is the companies and their information that could go public. They didn't realize they had a process in place when they made applications, and I think a good point that was made here is that the SDTC problem wasn't from the companies applying to it but with the behaviour of the director and particular members of the board.

Why wouldn't we then just have this as the policy forever if that is the case? Some of the companies that have been captured in this have already expressed concern about their intellectual property and other matters and their competition from other, even foreign, companies on some of these innovations that are taking place. That's what has come back to me in the office as well.

I have a lot of concerns related to that. In the past when we've had these sensitive information requests, we've even taken the position that we would have the documents behind closed doors, so to speak, in camera, so we could look at them. I don't know if that's a path we would consider so we wouldn't actually victimize somebody by accident. We've done that for the auto sector in particular. It's not the best solution, but it's one of the potential solutions.

The difference, though, in this one is that we have so many other different files here. For all those reasons, I have concerns with the motion as it's presented right now. I don't know fully what happened at public accounts today, but I'm going to have to go back and take a look at where they're going with this. I think that's a bigger question for all of us.

I know there have been other issues that have been shopped around several committees. The auto file, much to my concern, was also shopped around different committees. These are all the things I'm thinking about on this.

In particular, I've been contacted by some companies that have expressed concern that they're being maligned because of the behaviour of SDTC's board members. That also affects the investment they put into it, as well as the investment the government and taxpayers put into it, because people see them as toxic for no reason of their own making.

I'm wondering, for anybody else at the table here, if you made an application for a bank loan or something, and then all of a sudden later on, retroactively, all your personal and company information was then made public, how you'd deal with that. I'm not sure why we wouldn't be more strategic or tactical on this.

Those are the concerns I have at the moment with regard to the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Mr. Turnbull, you have the floor.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Further to the comments made by colleagues, I tend to agree with Mr. Masse and with some of the points Mr. Garon made.

When we froze funding for SDTC, we heard very strongly about the impact that it had on the clean-tech industry in Canada. Those companies went through significant struggles as a result, and not necessarily through any fault of their own. Think about the large portfolio of companies that SDTC funds and the impacts on all of them from having their funding frozen because of a number of technical violations by board members who didn't recuse themselves but rather abstained. There have been significant effects on the clean-tech industry as a direct result of funds being frozen. If all of a sudden we are questioning every funding decision that's been made under the new structure and the new governance model, is that really our role? The contribution agreements contain information submitted by those companies when they go through the very rigorous process, and they are not thinking that information will be made public.

The other thing is that Mr. Généreux has already introduced an amendment to this motion, contrary to what was said here by other members, that takes the request for the production of documents all the way back to 2018. If this were really focused on moving forward, where we started from was 2024, and now you've introduced an amendment to gather and produce documents all the way back to 2018. That is not consistent with what the Conservatives made in terms of arguments here. I don't know what the motivation is. It seems as though it's to keep studying this and studying this and studying this to catch some headlines and make more news stories on their social media sites and to claim things that are untrue.

There's no doubt there were some technical violations by the board, and they should have been held accountable, and they were held accountable. The organization was dissolved and reconstituted and is now under a new governance model. I think this is what we all think should have happened, and it is what happened. I just wanted to make those couple of points. I'm sure we could debate this for a lot longer, but perhaps we can get to a vote on it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you.

Mr. Perkins, it is your turn to take the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There seems to be some confusion about what a contribution agreement is. I thought I made it clear in my two statements. There are contribution agreements signed by ISED, written by ISED and given to SDTC—and it's still SDTC. It hasn't been collapsed into anything else yet.

The contribution agreements lay out generally where they're allowed to spend money and where they're not. Members seem to be confused. This is not an agreement between SDTC and an individual company once a grant has been given. There's nothing about that. This is about the contribution agreement and the language of SDTC. That contribution agreement is the one set out by ISED. That's what this is looking at. It doesn't actually list a single company. All it does is set out where you are allowed to spend a billion dollars of taxpayer money. The Auditor General said that they went outside of those agreements in creating a number of other funds that weren't part of that.

In addition to that, the whistle-blower has said that those agreements have now been amended in the new governance structure, and none of them have ever been made public, including by the board members. None of them have been made public to outline those restrictions.

They've been amended, according to the whistle-blower. One of them has been amended to recategorize the $58 million that was spent on COVID payments and other things to now be retroactively eligible. It's not a list; it's the parameters of how they spend taxpayer money and what they're allowed to spend it on. It's a very clear agreement. How they are to follow the contribution agreements set out by ISED has been talked about ad nauseam on the websites of both ISED and SDTC over the years. That's what this asks for. It does not ask for any individual agreement with a company once a grant is made.

The second part of this motion just asks for a list of the companies that have received money, and how much, since SDTC has started up again. That's essentially the same thing SDTC was publishing every quarter on their website until the government froze their assets. That's all the motion is asking for. It's very simple: Be transparent, as you were before this thing got shut down, about who you're giving the money to and show us the contribution agreements going back to 2018—because they've been altered—between ISED and the SDTC board and management on what they can spend money on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Heard under that argument, though, why would you request those contribution agreements all the way back to 2018, if that were the case?

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

It's because they've been altered, and I want to see what they looked like before.

I'm sorry. Can I answer that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Yes.

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

When the Auditor General's report came out, the Auditor General said $58 million was spent outside of those contribution agreements. Now, the whistle-blower said recently, this summer, that the contribution agreement has been amended, and it now makes all those projects eligible. The only way to know this is to see the previous version and the current version that has now allegedly been signed by ISED.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I have Mr. Masse. We're still on the amendment by Mr. Généreux.

Go ahead, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I'll suggest this to help get us past this impasse: Why don't we see the documents in camera? If we find things that are a problem, we can then identify them and go from there. I think that might be the best way to move forward.

I appreciate what's being said here, but I'm having a bit of trouble. I don't want to victimize another company by accident.

We could then decide on yes or no. I can hear what's going on, and I understand the concern, Mr. Perkins, about not being able to talk about it in public. We could make that decision after we see the documents. It is a fair point you're raising, but I suggest that we do that to start with and then go forward. It's not a perfect solution to what you're seeking, for sure, but we could get to that point later, if necessary.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you, Mr. Masse.

Go ahead, Mr. Perkins.

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

Well, the list of companies shouldn't be in camera. The list of companies was a public document before, quarterly, on SDTC's own website, so there's no reason for that to be in camera. Why should it be less transparent now than it was before the corruption?

With regard to the contribution agreement, I would agree to seeing it in camera as long as we're allowed to speak about it in public if there are anomalies. The problem with having it in camera is that your hands are tied. You cannot speak publicly about it.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes.

I don't want to take over the role of the chair here. Is it okay if I respond to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Of course, Mr. Masse.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I can appreciate that argument too, because that's one of the reasons I didn't see the Volkswagen documents. I was concerned about my inability to advocate on auto issues. I get that it's not a perfect thing. We could do the listing that you're suggesting, but then have all the other documents in camera and go from there.