Public Accounts Committee on June 13th, 2007

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Drouin.

This concludes this part of the process today.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, a point of clarification.

Numbers are being thrown around. I'd just like to clarify for people, if you look at the Auditor General's report, what she said was “Renewing the lease at Place Victoria cost $2.5 million more than the winning bid in the tendering process”, based on $431 per square foot.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

This is not a point of order, and I think we have to get on to our agenda. It's a matter of debate on the numbers that are being used here. I don't think it's appropriate to get into this with the witness. He's not even familiar with the numbers. I don't know where this is going to get us.

We've used up the allotted time for this. We have other business to deal with, and we're going to get on with it.

Thank you very much, witness Drouin.

We have two motions that carry over from yesterday, and I want to deal with those before we go in camera

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

Can we also deal with my motion?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

We can deal with that one as well. We have Mr. Poilievre's motion already on the board. His is third on the list. We'll keep it in chronological order.

Mr. Poilievre's motion from yesterday was that the chair of the public accounts committee write a letter to the current Clerk of the Privy Council to inquire about the information given by Mr. Pelletier at his last appearance before this committee when he spoke of a Privy Council request that he look into a donation to the Liberal Party of Canada, and that the letter ask what records there are of this information and also what explanation the bureaucrats at the department can provide explaining why it was involved in such partisan activity. That's essentially the motion.

Mr. Poilievre, it's your motion. I'll let you speak first.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

The purpose of my motion is that.... I don't know if others caught it, but there is this explanation by Mr. Pelletier that he looked into a $5,000 donation by Claude Boulay's firm because Privy Council asked him to, and that was a donation to the Liberal Party. That does seem to be a very strange role for the Privy Council. The Privy Council is a non-partisan organization. Effectively, it's the department that underlies the Prime Minister of Canada. It should not be aware of who is donating what to any political party. I think the very least we can ask is an explanation of the officials at Privy Council as to what record they have of this advice that they gave to the then chief of staff and what explanation they have for giving it.

I'll leave it at that. I think it's fairly self-evident. I don't expect that there will be any opposition, so I put that forward and I appreciate very much the chance to speak to it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Ms. Sgro.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

I have just a comment. I want to ask the clerk.... When we had Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Guité here, there were various questions that Mr. Pelletier's lawyer was going to send in a letter adding further information about. My recollection was that this was one of them.

He had two weeks to send in a letter answering this and a couple of other points that he wanted to clarify. It has only been a week, I guess, now. Have you received it yet?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Georges Etoka]

No. I received an e-mail from Mr. Pratte yesterday, and today I confirmed that he had ten days to reply, and he told me he would do that by next Friday.

[Judy Sgro, Liberal, York West, ON]

By next Friday. My suggestion is that we get this letter from Mr. Pelletier and see if he answers to the satisfaction of the committee the questions that were raised, and then we deal with Mr. Poilievre's request to ask the Privy Council.

I'm not sure that I understand the point behind it. There could be a couple of points, but I understand the sincerity of your point behind this. We're dealing with the discrepancies in the Gomery commission, and I'm not sure that this actually is in order. But I'm more than prepared. I think we should wait for Mr. Pelletier's letter, and then, if we still have some concerns, we deal with it at that time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

I think we understand your concern.

Mr. Williams.

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

The other point I was going to make—and it's not reflected in the motion, Mr. Chairman—is that Mr. Pelletier also said that he was checking out the bank account because he thought it was primarily full of government money. Those are my words; they're not exactly his words. I'm paraphrasing here.

I was wondering why the chief of staff of the Prime Minister and the Privy Council Office would be aware of a bank account and what moneys were being deposited to that bank account, and then to be alarmed because a cheque for $5,000 had been drawn on that bank account, which they thought was primarily government funds, to be donated to the Liberal Party. It seems to be that they were in command of a huge amount of information that would get me quite alarmed in a democratic country.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Are you making an amendment to this motion, Mr. Williams, to add this aspect to it?

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

Yes. I think if we're going to get some answers from the Privy Council as to documentation, we should find out that kind of documentation too, as to why they are aware of the contents of a bank account and who is depositing what to it.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Have you suggested wording for your amendment?

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

Well, I thought it was fairly good, Mr. Chairman. I'm sure the clerk understood what I was saying.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

The clerk nodded yes that he could handle that.

I have Mr. Laforest on the list.

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

Mr. Chairman, this is somewhat in reaction to what Ms. Sgro said, but I would like to specify that this motion is in order. I do not believe it is necessary to wait for Mr. Pelletier's response. The two things can happen in tandem. The fact that the Chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts wrote a letter to the Privy Council requesting some information regarding this situation is not necessarily in contradiction with the fact that Mr. Pelletier has given us his version of events. I support the motion as amended.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

All the members who are in agreement--

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'll just close by saying on the motion that I think there's no reason why we can't wait for this letter that's supposedly coming from Pelletier and ask for the Privy Council explanation at the same time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

I was just going to go ahead with a vote on that matter.

Go ahead, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, just for clarification, was Mr. Williams making a friendly amendment to this motion?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Brian Fitzpatrick]

Yes, it's a friendly amendment.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Could we hear the text of that?

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

The text of the amendment I proposed, Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, is that in addition to the information Mr. Poilievre has requested in his motion, we also ask the Privy Council to advise this committee of the basis on which they were aware of the bank account, the contents of the bank account, what was being deposited to that bank account, and other information they had pertaining to that bank account, which seems rather strange to me.

(Amendment agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]

(Motion agreed to) [See Minutes of Proceedings]