Evidence of meeting #64 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 pelletier.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
As an Individual
No, you're not understanding the statement that I made at this committee. The commission didn't understand it, and you still don't understand it.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
They're your words. I'm just reading them back to you.
As an Individual
But you are not. You are reading words....
The political system was involved in selecting agencies to assign what event. The political system was never involved in selecting an agency to be qualified to do work for the government, except in one case that I found out at the Gomery commission—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Mr. Chair, he said right here:
Regularly. ... Well, when we reviewed the list. He wouldn't change it but he would say that should go to this agency.
Those are your own words. So the question is, were you lying to this committee, or were you lying to Gomery?
As an Individual
I wasn't lying to anybody. I said the same thing here as I said there.
Let me read it to you.
Conservative
As an Individual
I know, and I'm going to read again what I said to this committee:
Did the PMO and ministers provide input and decisions with respect to specific events that were sponsored and in the allocation to specific firms? Absolutely.
What did I say at Gomery? The same thing.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You said “agencies”. We're not talking about whether they gave direction about where events should be held, or which events should be funded. We're talking about the agencies that were paid—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Yes, but you said.... Okay, I'm not going to repeat it; I already have. I think it is evident to everyone who is listening.
I'll give you another example. Here's a question that was being posed about the agencies at Gomery:
What did “input” mean in the case of Gagliano? Did it mean comment, discussion, or did it mean decision?
You answered: “Decision.”
You told Parliament in April 2004 that Gagliano was never involved in these decisions. But then you told Gomery that not only was he involved, but that he made the decisions. That's a clear contradiction.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
I don't know if we're living on different planets or what.
As an Individual
No, no.
Through the bureaucracy, the Government of Canada will qualify an agency to do business with the government. In order to do that, you have to have a competition, and there's a selection committee, and so on. The political system has never been involved in that, except in the case of Paul Martin's office.
I found out about another one that came to my attention during the Gomery commission. On March 20, 1995, Madame Bourgon, who was the Clerk of the Privy Council, recommended to Monsieur Chrétien that he approve the dispersement of $100,000 to two advertising agencies with well-known Liberal affiliation, for the period leading up to the Quebec referendum. There was no prior call for tender, and they were treated as advertising disbursements.
So I found out at the Gomery commission that the Prime Minister's Office was directly involved in selecting agencies. But if I had known that when I came—
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Sir, we are already aware that Paul Martin intervened to try to get certain agencies involved.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
We know that he tried to help his friends. That is not new to this committee, nor is it the discussion we're looking at here.
You have a chance here, sir, to just let it all out. Just tell the truth.
Liberal
Anthony Rota Liberal Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON
A point of order, Mr. Chair. This is the same as before; he tried this with Mr. Pelletier.
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
You've had years now to come around and tell the truth. We're giving you this chance. Why not take it?
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Nepean—Carleton, ON
Can you tell us where the $40 million that's still missing from the sponsorship program has gone?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
You time's up anyway.
We'll move on to Mr. Christopherson for seven minutes.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Chair.
Mr. Guité, on page Roman numeral viii of the documents that you were forwarded, in your opening statement to this committee, you said:
During my tenure…CCSB never selected an agency without following the process as defined in the contracting policy and guidelines
In front of Gomery, you were asked:
…the process you were using did not comply strictly with Appendix ‘U.’
I'm assuming that this is the contracting policy and guidelines. Your answer was:
Their interpretation, yes.
And then there was the question:
And actually, even your interpretation; isn’t that right?
You said: “Correct.”
You were then asked:
...it is pretty clear that you didn’t go and compete every even
That's got to be a mistake. You said:
Very clear.
Then the question was:
Yes. And it is also very clear…that was not compliant with Appendix ‘U.’
You agreed.
So in your opening comments, you said here that everything was done according to the rules. Then at the Gomery commission, it would appear that you gave a different answer.
Could you explain, please?
As an Individual
Yes.
When we select agencies, we follow the contract regulations with a committee that's put together to do the selection. Once an agency is selected, it becomes like a standing offer.
In appendix U of that policy, it says that if more than one agency is assigned to a department—for example, Health Canada and Tourism had two or three—then every time there's a new campaign, it should be recompeted. That's what we didn't follow in appendix U.
And I say “we”: my organization and every other department in this town. Because as long as I was there, once agencies were assigned to departments, you never competed projects between those agencies.