Public Accounts Committee on June 6th, 2007

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I'd like to call the meeting to order.

The first item of business is to ask the individuals with cameras to leave the room. Thank you very much.

I want to welcome everyone here. Bienvenue à tous.

Colleagues, members of the public, witnesses, this meeting has been called, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), to study a report on discrepancies in the testimonies of individuals who appeared before both this committee and the Gomery commission.

This meeting will be divided into two parts. The first part will start at 3:30 and will last until 4:30. We have one witness, Mr. Jean Pelletier. At 4:30, the committee will take a one- or two-minute break. Then we will resume and go from 4:30 to 5:30. At that point in time we will hear from Mr. Charles Guité.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Mr. Chairman, I just have some brief business. Can we do that right at the end of the meeting?

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

After 5:30?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Yes, 5:30 is fine.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Pelletier, I want to extend to you a warm welcome on behalf of the committee members.

Before starting, there are a few opening comments I want to make to the committee. Then we are going to invite Mr. Pelletier to give his opening statement. Then, as agreed to by the members of the committee, we're going to follow the ordinary format for one round only of seven minutes. Members of the Conservative Party and members of the Liberal Party, if they so choose—they're not obligated—can take fourteen minutes in block rather than two segments of seven.

There are just a few comments I want to make, because of the nature of this hearing.

Ladies and gentlemen, before starting on today's proceedings, I believe it is appropriate for me to make some opening remarks regarding today's meeting. The so-called sponsorship scandal had its parliamentary phase in the winter and spring of 2004. During that period of the 37th Parliament, the public accounts committee examined a number of witnesses on the November 2003 report of the Auditor General.

At about the same time as the committee was conducting its hearings, the Gomery commission of inquiry started functioning, and it also heard testimony from several of the same individuals as had appeared before the public accounts committee. On a separate track, the RCMP and other police forces conducted investigations into the sponsorship-related actions of those who had been heard by the committee or by the Gomery inquiry. Some of those involved in this complex of procedures were charged by the Crown and tried; some of those were convicted.

These proceedings of the public accounts committee highlighted the importance of the investigative and fact-finding work of parliamentary committees in general. This work, conducted in execution of the inherent powers of Parliament and pursuant to the Parliament of Canada Act and in the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, is part of the proper functioning of the legislative branch of government. It is meant to bolster the doctrine and the practice of accountability and therefore, in a very direct manner, to reinforce democracy in Canada.

This setting of the scene brings me to the question of principle, which warrants today's meeting. Pursuant to all measures and standards applicable in democratic regimes, based on the rule of law, in conducting their work parliamentary committees are entitled to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Let me emphasize that point. Whether one relies on parliamentary law in general, on the oath of office of appointed public officials, on the testimony of other individuals, be they sworn in pursuant to subsection 10(3) of the Parliament of Canada Act or not, witnesses appearing and testifying before parliamentary committees are bound to provide answers to all questions put to them; to ensure that their replies are fulsome—that is, complete; and to avoid misleading committees either by omission of relevant information or by testimony that could amount to perjury or contempt of Parliament.

Parliamentary committees are not courts of law. Nevertheless, they are entitled to the same standard of respect and honesty as the courts. If committees perceive that the testimony provided to them does not meet the standard they are entitled to, committees are fully within their rights in examining why and in taking corrective action. The law, privileges, and custom of Parliament afford them this right and, I would suggest to you, this responsibility.

With reference to the witnesses here today, it is the rule of truth that is being applied. The committee has examined the testimony given by these witnesses before the committee and later before the Gomery inquiry. The committee has found that there are apparent inconsistencies and perhaps contradictions between those testimonies.

The committee affirms its right to question witnesses in such circumstances, and that is what it intends to do here today at this hearing. Today the witnesses before us are being afforded an opportunity to explain the discrepancies or contradictions in their testimonies. Members are asked to focus their questions on these discrepancies for the purpose of finding an explanation.

We are not, I underline and repeat, we are not revisiting the multitude of substantive issues surrounding the so-called sponsorship scandal.

Thank you very much for your attention.

At this point in time I will now turn the floor over the Monsieur Pelletier for his opening comments.

Before we do that, we'll swear in the witness. I'll ask the clerk to do that now.

Mr. Williams.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I think all members have a copy of a report by the Library of Parliament, “Comparison of Sponsorship Testimony Provided to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Gomery Commission”, dated May 1, 2006. I think that document should be tabled, because it's going to be the reference material for today's meeting, I believe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Williams, that point was brought up before. The report is deemed to be tabled once it's referred to. It hasn't been referred to yet.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I just did.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

I assume it will be very shortly, in the actual hearing.

I have instructed staff from the Parliament. They do not have sufficient copies. They're in the process of making them now. I'm not going to give it to any media without giving it to all the media. Copies will be made and will be available within 20 minutes or so.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I just wanted to make sure that the document is tabled. I don't know whether the witness has a copy, but that's not the point, Mr. Chairman. I think that documents that are relevant to a committee proceeding should be tabled by the chair at the beginning of the meeting and referred to and therefore become a public document.

I appreciate the point that we don't have copies for the media, but that is not the issue I was talking about. What I am concerned about is that the document is formally now before the committee and can be referred to by anybody, rather than waiting for somebody to make reference to it and to pass it. It is a document that we have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

It's a document that is deemed to be tabled once it is referred to in the committee.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

Mr. Chairman, I just did refer to it, so I take it to be--

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Yes, and we are following that. And there's no question about it that it will be referred to and it will be circulated, but it won't be done for another 15 or 20 minutes. They're making copies.

[John Williams, Conservative, Edmonton—St. Albert, AB]

I just said that I'm not that concerned about the media and the unfortunate lack of administrative capacity to give them all a copy. I'm just saying it's now before the committee; we have it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

We have it, yes. Okay.

Mr. Clerk, swear in the witness.

[Jean Pelletier, As an Individual]

I, Jean Pelletier, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth in my testimony. So help me God.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much.

At this point in time I will invite you, Mr. Pelletier, to deliver your opening comments.

[Jean Pelletier]

Mr. Chairman, I want to say hello to everyone.

I'm here in full respect of Parliament and its institutions, a respect that I have always had and that has never left me. I am, of course, surprised to find myself here, as, since April 2004, there has been a commission of inquiry, which lasted months, and an exhaustive report that further engaged the judicial system, whereas a judicial review of the report has been requested of the Federal Court and will not be heard until early 2008.

I was surprised to read in your evidence that I had refused to come. If you look at the letter that my attorney sent your clerk on May 28, which ends with the following two lines, “For these reasons, I would be grateful if you would ask the committee to withdraw its invitation until the said legal proceedings have concluded,” that does not indicate that I refused to come. Given that the credibility of witnesses will be central to the judicial review proceeding before the Federal Court, I thought it might be important, for that reason, to delay my appearance here until the Federal Court proceedings were completed.

That said, Mr. Chairman, I would very much appreciate it if you would correct your minutes to show that I did not refuse to attend, but rather asked that you postpone the invitation.

You sent me three questions, and the questions by the members of your committee will be limited to those.

At the outset, Mr. Chairman, I will tell you that, upon reviewing the texts of the Gomery Commission and this committee, I do not see any contradiction. I will of course have the opportunity to say more on that in response to questions.

But first I want to say and repeat that it never occurred to me to try to mislead your committee. If there are grey areas, let us clarify them, but I have in no way tried to mislead your committee. I have too much respect for Parliament and its institutions to do that.

Mr. Chairman, I am now prepared to answer the questions that members will want to ask me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pelletier.

We will now go to the first examiner, and that's the representative of the Liberal Party.

Are you going to take fourteen minutes or seven minutes?

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I'll take seven minutes, Mr. Chair. I'm sharing it among my colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ms. Sgro.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Pelletier, thank you very much for taking the time to come today. I understand that you are in ill health, and I appreciate very much the fact that you're here.

Our role in the public accounts committee you of course know very well from previous years, but we're certainly dealing with some challenges today on issues of testimony that isn't consistent and discrepancies that we clearly want to try to have corrected on the record today.

We've been tasked with investigating the alleged inconsistencies between your previous testimony here at the public accounts committee on April 6, 2004, and your appearance before Judge Gomery's commission.

One of the areas of confusion centres around a statement made before this committee, in which you said--and if I'm going too fast, please just ask me to repeat it--and this is a quote directly from you, Mr. Pelletier:

The Prime Minister's Office had no role, neither direct nor indirect, in choosing the agencies or firms that became intermediaries between the government and the organizers of subsidized events. We had nothing to do with the choice of intermediaries. We had nothing to do with awarding contracts to whomever. The Prime Minister's Office never had anything to do with setting the fees or the production fees or simple fees of any nature whatsoever.

We at the Prime Minister's Office were in no way involved in the administrative management of the program. I want that to be very clearly understood.

That was said to the public accounts committee.

Now, at Judge Gomery's commission, you said:

There weren’t any criteria that were, I would say, completely objective, and, you know, we’ll never be able to come up with criteria that are standardized to such a point that the selection can be made by a computer. .... So, there’s a subjective element that’s simply a question of good judgment. We tried to show good judgment in our recommendations.

Can you please explain for the committee the difference between providing political input in project selection and the administrative management of the program, including the contracting process, the selection of agencies, and the setting of fees paid to intermediaries?

If you need me at any time to repeat any of that, I'd be glad to do that.

[Jean Pelletier]

Madam, I clearly established, both here and at the Gomery Commission, the difference between the agency selection, the administration of the ensuing contracts and the opinions that we had to give concerning events that should be sponsored and, in some cases, the sponsorship itself.

With regard to agency selection, which of course came after the decision to subsidize or sponsor an event, the Prime Minister's Office, I repeat, was never involved. We did not select the agencies; we did not set any contract conditions whatever; we negotiated none of those conditions; we signed no contracts, and we approved no account received in payment. That's it for administration, the administrative management of the program.

Furthermore, before it came around to selecting an agency, which, I repeat, was not our job, sometimes we were asked for an opinion on an event to sponsor. We gave opinions on whether a given event should be sponsored or not. When required, we sometimes gave an opinion on the budget that would be granted to a given sponsorship if it were selected. I have always said that we did not make the final decisions on that subject, but that we made recommendations and that the onus was on the Public Works Department project managers to make the final decisions and then to manage the administrative machinery, exclusively, regarding agency selection, contract conditions, contract signing and payment of invoices.

Madam, does that answer your question?

Furthermore, with your permission, I would add that, in the context of the testimony that I gave here, the Honourable Robert Thibault asked me the following question:

Mr. Pelletier, could you tell us what difference you see between involvement by the Prime Minister's Office, a minister's office or an MP's office, that is, political involvement in a file, and administrative interference?

I gave him the following answer, which you will find in the evidence:

If the Prime Minister's Office had selected the firms responsible for program delivery, if we had determined which file went to which firm together with the terms of payment, we would have been involved in the administration and delivery of the program. The Prime Minister's Office was in no way involved in any of those aspects. It is likely that we expressed an opinion on whether to fund this or that project, for such and such a reason, but the final decision was not made by the PMO. If the unit managing the file was influenced more by our comments than by those of Tom, Dick and Harry, I can't help it. The decision did not come from the PMO.

Jason Kenney asked me this about my meetings with Mr. Guité:

Did you speak with him about particular sponsorship files? Did you propose to him that he ought to authorize funding for particular projects, specific projects?

He was talking about my meetings with Mr. Guité. I answered him as follows:

There is absolutely no doubt we made recommendations, as would any member of Parliament or any minister who supports their constituents' projects that fall under a program and that involve a decision.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Time is up. We'd like to go to the next examiner right now.

Before we go to Monsieur Laforest, I would make a couple of comments to the examiners. If you are referring to the report prepared by the Library of Parliament, I would ask that you refer to the page in order to assist the interpreters. It helps with the translation.

Secondly, I'm going to remind members to keep your questions short and to the point.

I'd also ask the witness to be brief and to keep the answers entirely relevant to the questions being asked.

Mr. Laforest.

[Jean-Yves Laforest, Bloc, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.