Evidence of meeting #62 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contract.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Fitzpatrick.
That concludes the first round. I have a couple of questions.
Mrs. Casey, you're the president of the company. In the year 2003, you had one contract there. How many employees besides you and your husband would have been working on this particular contract?
As an Individual
I believe, if we're referring to the same contract, the contract was for one year plus an option year. We had proposed 11 resources for that particular contract. Not all 11 worked on it. Some of it was on an “as and when required” basis. I believe about seven or eight people worked on that contract.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
According to our information, the original contract was for $3 million. You received $1.423 million. And this was for seven or eight people?
As an Individual
No, I believe the contract, sir, was over a two-year period. So it was a total of $3 million over the two years.
Liberal
As an Individual
I'm going on recollection. I don't know if it was eight or nine; I know we didn't use all of the resources.
Liberal
As an Individual
It's a business I've been involved in since 1991, and I've had many contracts with 12, 13, 14, or 15 people on the contract.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Mr. Molson, I understand from the information that you were an employee at NCPC.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
That was in the 2001 period. Then you got out of that particular contract and formed your own consulting firm, J. Molson & Associates.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
On these two contracts for which you received $471,000, how many people would you have had working on those contracts?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
It was just you, and that would be over a period of...from when to when? It would mention it right here, probably.
As an Individual
It would have been probably from April or May 2001 until approximately a February timeframe, in 2004.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
That would just be you.
Okay, I raised this before, but I want to go back to it, Mr. Minto.
This is something that I find somewhat disturbing. We have a situation here. We have this KPMG 1. Now we have KPMG 2 and KPMG 3.
The words I quote from the previous deputy minister, David Marshall. He said it stinks, and I have to agree with Mr. Marshall on that assessment. He was the deputy minister. We have corruption, collusion, and just old-fashioned hanky-panky going on in your department.
I appreciate the size and magnitude of your department, but what I find disturbing is this. Each and every year the department issues a departmental performance report. It's a very lengthy document; in your case it is 400 or 500 or 600 pages. It goes through all the things the department has done and all the great things they have done and the things that you've accomplished. But, sir, this is what I consider to be a major problem that goes right to the heart of ethics and government waste and mismanagement, and you name it: there is no mention in your departmental performance reports of this very issue. You reported to Parliament, as you should have, as to the activities of your department, but there was not one mention of this major problem you were having in Consulting and Audit Canada.
If you're not going to mention this, why do you get into all this great stuff you're doing? The purpose of the departmental performance reports is for the departments to report on their performances. In this particular case--and I don't say this is a reflection on the department itself, because people in the public have to bear in mind that this is a very large department--in the words of Mr. Marshall, it stinks. I know this wasn't your decision--you don't write the departmental performance reports--but why was it that the top echelons of the department chose not to put this issue in the departmental performance reports?