Evidence of meeting #32 for Public Accounts in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was contract.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
Mr. MacPhie, Ms. Mintz's contract was entirely separate. Is that correct?
Did you have two other colleagues working with you, or one other colleague?
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
I'll address both of your questions.
It was a pleasure to work with Ms. Mintz, but her arrangements were separate from ours. In addition to me, there was another colleague as part of the team MacPhie & Company brought to the work we were doing with the 2007 budget. I must state for the record what a wonderful job my colleague did.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
David Sweet Conservative Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON
This is extraordinary. You're saying to me that for $122,000 you developed every aspect of the budget communications. You actually paid another associate. You went to five locations across the country, editing everything page by page.
Now, did you pay for those deliberations of five round tables? Did that come out of it?
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Yes. Overall, our expenses were $14,000, and we paid for those expenses out of our own pocket. To be clear, our actual invoice for fees was, I believe, $115,500. The rest was GST on top of our fee, so it actually was $115,000.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy
Thank you, Mr. Sweet. Thank you, Mr. MacPhie.
We'll now move on to Mr. Christopherson. Mr. Christopherson, you have seven minutes.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thanks, Chair.
Thank you for your presentation and for being here today.
I have a disclaimer also off the top. I do not know Ms. Mintz, but I do know her mom, Judy Mintz, very well. She's an activist in the community in Hamilton, well known to a lot of people, a well-known Conservative. My confession is that I like Judy, we work together. And I want to make a promise to Mr. MacPhie that I'll try not to hold against him the fact that he aided and abetted Mike Harris.
I'll start with Ms. Mintz. You said that someone asked you to come out and join the team or come and work. Who asked you?
12:35 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay.
I simply want to say right now that the context for all of this goes back to commitments the current Prime Minister made on November 17 when he said of patronage, “This has got to stop, and when we become government, it will stop”.
The nature of what we're looking at here is how much of this work is as a result of ties with the Conservative Party. So my question to you, Ms. Mintz, is if you weren't well known and active within the Conservative world, would you have gotten that phone call?
12:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
In my opinion, I have a very unique set of skills that I brought to the table. Included in that are my three degrees in business, law, and politics, and my previous history of public service. And yes, as I said from the outset, I am politically involved, but to be clear, I believe the reason I got the call had a lot to do with those qualifications and my expertise and that skill set.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay, but the contacts didn't hurt. You don't have to answer.
You said you were advised that the contract would be up to $24,900. Was there any discussion about why? Did anybody say to you, “Here's why we're crafting it that way”? It's an unusual number. If somebody hires me and says “I'll pay you $22,395.12”, it's a bit of a strange number. So was there a conversation around why the threshold of $24,900?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
When I received the call and the offer was extended, that was the offer that was extended. It was a contract for $24,900, a sum not to exceed $24,900, and that was what was offered at that time.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I hear that. I'm asking, was there any discussion by anyone with you about why that figure is the figure?
12:40 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Okay.
Mr. MacPhie, prior going into cabinet myself, I was parliamentary assistant, as you probably know, to the Minister of Finance, so I was on the inside of the development of the second-largest budget in the country. So I have some idea, again, of how these things happen.
You went to great length to talk about all the work you had to do, page by page and looking at all the various programs, and I grant you all of that. But I also know that virtually every other staff person--and there are uncountable numbers of people who are involved--comes in and does the same number of hours, the same amount of work, and they continue to work for the rest of the year, and most of them for less money than you charged. So where was the value added?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
I want to thank you for the question.
Let me begin by saying that we're very proud of our reputation at the firm. We work hard, and we've worked hard to develop the skill sets that we have. Our clients are very generous to us in their praise, and while I think I'm too humble to say this here, I would urge you to go to our website to see what our clients say about us, to address specifically the skill sets that we have.
I would also say that we did provide value for money. The rates that our firm charge are quite reasonable--
12:40 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I'm sorry, but I'm asking what you added to the other professionals who were around the table who are full-time, hopefully well-paid staff, professionals, working just as hard as you, and who are just as smart as you. What was the value added you brought that only you could bring?
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
I think there are a couple of things. First, when it comes to communications planning, when it comes to speech writing, when it comes to editing and ensuring the documents we worked on were consistent with the strategy, were consistent with—
12:40 p.m.
NDP
David Christopherson NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
You're not doing well. You need more. Come on, what did you add? Everything you're telling me, I could see twenty people in the ministry who would do exactly that—a lot smarter than I am—who would be working for hours and hours doing exactly what you're saying. What I want to know is the justification, the value added that you brought that made it so important that you, and only you, needed to be brought in at this rate.
12:40 p.m.
As an Individual
We were contacted by the minister's office. The minister's office came to us and said they would like our help with this. As I noted before, I did have some experience working with the minister, and I was known to people within—