Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 3rd, 2024

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Well, that's why we have roll call.

Why don't you just call the vote, Clerk? This is to add the seven names

that Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné suggested.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 10; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We are now back to the motion as twice amended, which is the list that Mr. Perkins presented, less Minister Guilbeault. We have added the law clerk and we have added the seven additional witnesses who are potentially in a conflict of interest. That is the motion.

Is there any discussion on it, or shall I call the vote?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Are we talking about the motion now?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes—as twice amended.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Chair, I have one amendment to propose.

As I indicated earlier when I spoke to this motion, the Auditor General has just conducted a value-for-money audit on the SDTC. It was tabled in Parliament just a few short months ago. I think perhaps it would be best to wait. When the Auditor General comes before this committee, we can ask her the relevant questions on SDTC and question her on this audit and on how much a performance audit would overlap with her current work or if it would be more beneficial to wait until the new processes are fully in place before we request or overstep, in many ways, in asking her to do something. I mean, it really is her prerogative.

I think it is probably better for us to come to a conclusion on what we're doing here, have her appear before the committee to answer the questions that we may have for her and then go from there. Obviously, the committee can decide to bring forward a motion at a later time, once we have more information, and perhaps with better scope and precision as to how we proceed forward on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Is your amendment to strike paragraph (b)?

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Basically, my amendment is to strike (b).

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. I have an amendment to the motion twice amended to strike (b).

Mr. Perkins, I saw your hand go up. I assume you want the floor to discuss this.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

To correct the record, the report by the Auditor General is not a forensic audit and it's not a value-for-money audit. It was a modest governance audit. It sampled only 226 transactions, a small portion of the ones that were done in that period, by the Auditor General's own admission. There has been additional evidence, additional information, added to the list since the Auditor General's appearance. For example, the Auditor General had not categorized the value of the 90 declared conflicts, which turned out to be over $250 million.

The Auditor General is not currently doing anything on SDTC, and this committee is asking for something different from what MP Khalid is suggesting, which is to delay, rag the puck and hope that it all goes away. We're asking for a much more traditional audit by the Auditor General, which the public would know as a forensic audit, but in this motion, it's called a value-for-money and performance audit. That's the Auditor General's current term. That is not what she did before, so I would object vehemently to the government's attempt to stop the further investigation by the Auditor General of SDTC with this deletion from the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

To reiterate, Ms. Khalid is not, in fact, the government but a member of this committee. I do occasionally refer to you as a government member, but you are here as a member.

You have the floor, please.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Very respectfully, I will also vehemently disagree with what Mr. Perkins has said, because nothing that the Auditor General does is “modest”. Her office takes every performance audit very seriously, and if she felt that more work was necessary, she would conduct that appropriate audit herself. We don't need to dictate to anyone. I think that if we are going down this path of inviting all of these witnesses and hearing from her as well in this committee, then we can pose those questions to her.

I think we should be very careful in how we are conducting ourselves and make sure that we are bringing whatever issues to light that need to be raised and give the Auditor General the freedom to basically do her work, which she takes very seriously.

I really appreciate being part of public accounts, and having seen all of her reports and the amount of work that she and her office do, I don't think we should be dictating to her. We should have her in the committee to listen to what she has to say, answer everybody's questions, listen to what all the witnesses have to say and then perhaps decide exactly how we want to proceed. It is a little bit early in the game for us to be dictating to anybody what to do.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

I have no other speakers. Clerk, I'm going to have you call the roll.

This is a vote to strike part (b). If you vote in favour, the request to the Auditor General to undertake a value-for-money audit will be removed from this motion. If you vote no, it will remain in the motion.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I'm now on the motion that you tabled and that has now been twice amended—it has been amended more than that—and has had numerous names added to it, and one struck.

It's over to you, please, for closing remarks, although I will look for other speakers.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I obviously will support the original motion, even though it has one glaring error in not having the shareholder, Minister Guilbeault, on the list, as the government decided that they wanted to protect him from accountability on this subject. However, I will be voting for the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Seeing no other speakers, I will ask the clerk to call the vote on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 10, nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Thank you all very much.

This is actually not the committee business that is on the agenda. I'm going to suspend this meeting for two minutes and then bring us back into committee business in public.

Mr. Genuis, I'll be providing an update on some correspondence that was requested. Unless you have a point of order or it deals with the matter at hand, I'd ask you to wait. I will come back.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Yes. I just want to be on the list for committee business. That's it, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You will have an opportunity to raise your hand when we come back. I won't take names now.

The meeting is suspended for two minutes.

Is that enough time?

[A voice]

[Inaudible—Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. I'll be back in four minutes. I will take a walk down the hall. I would encourage everyone else to do the same.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I call the meeting back to order, please.

I have a brief update, and then I will turn to some business and members who are already in the queue.

This committee had passed a motion over the summer looking for Mr. Firth to respond to some committee testimony. We did receive that reply over the weekend. It will be translated and transmitted to you as soon as possible.

We had also requested some information, an audio recording, from CBSA. As of this morning, that had not arrived, and the clerk has already sent a note to request this information to be sent right away.

Mr. Perkins, you now have the floor. I have a list of other members who wish to address the committee, but it's over to you first, sir, please.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you. Mr. Chair.

Members will recall that this committee meeting on June 20 was suspended. I think that's the correct terminology. I'm not quite sure what the terminology is. The motion I had is not a study motion, but I think I have to ask for consent of the committee, Mr. Chair, to restart the debate on my motion of June 20.

I don't know if you want me to read the motion, but the motion was that:

Given, the Auditor General's audit of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and given that government appointed members approved:

(a) $59 million towards 10 ineligible projects;

(b) $76 million towards 90 projects in which board members had conflicts of interest and violated internal conflict of interest policies, and in violation of the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act;

(c) $259 million towards 96 projects where board members held conflicts of interest; and

(d) $58 million towards projects without ensuring contribution agreement terms were met; the committee therefore expresses extreme concern with the blatant disregard of taxpayer funds, and therefore calls on the Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry to recoup these funds for Canadian taxpayers within 100 days following the adoption of this motion, and that the committee report this matter to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Very good, Mr. Perkins.

Are there any additional comments? Should I proceed through the list of speakers?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

With all the process stuff, I'm just looking at time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Oh, I have additional resources. We're in—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Well, I think we have to have a vote to restart the discussion about this motion. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Does anyone object to restarting this debate?