Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 5th, 2024

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

Thank you for that.

I just want to dig a little bit deeper on this. You were talking earlier about the public interest and about engaging and attracting good talent to the public service, to come and do the hard work that Canadians expect them to. How does the continued diminishing of public institutions and trust in public institutions, through the various roles of social media or the lines of questioning the opposition goes into, diminish the role that organizations like this play in not only building public trust but also doing the important work that these organizations are tasked to do?

[Donnalyn McClymont]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

I would say that it's tough. We know first-hand, anecdotally, that some people who would be perfect for roles are dissuaded because they are concerned about the public profile. It can be a challenge. It can cast a pall, as I said, from the outset.

That said, though, I think we also have tens of thousands of people who have applied through our portal who want to serve and who do a good job of serving. As I said, if one thing that could happen from this conversation today would be that we got more people applying, I would feel that this was a success.

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

Thank you very much.

Again, I really appreciate your service to our country. Thank you for being here today and for having this conversation with us.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for coming in this morning. I do appreciate your willingness to appear before the committee and to answer the questions as best you could. If there's any outstanding information to be provided, you can do so through the clerk. I appreciate the answer you provided to Mr. Brock with respect to the number of individuals that were considered, that being six.

You are both now excused.

Turning to the matter at hand, Mr. Perkins has the floor for his—

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Chair, could we suspend?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Let me just hear a few rounds. I want to hear a few comments, unless Mr. Perkins would like to—

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

Let's have a personal break.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right.

We'll take five minutes only. We still have committee business, and I don't know how long it will take.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm going to bring this meeting back to order, albeit....

I'm told there will be some speakers to this, so I think we'll begin right away.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor, please. It's over to you.

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

I was hoping MP Khalid would be here, because I know my words will sway her.

However, in her absence, the purpose of this motion is.... Obviously, we've had new information, but there's also a lot of fog around that new information and how it came to be that an individual with a declared conflict of about $12 million of business with SDTC, the green slush fund, got through the appointments process with a great deal of speed and acceptance, was ultimately approved, and ended up, based on the information provided by the Auditor General subsequent to her report, with stated conflicts and about $35 million for projects handed out to companies that the chair had a conflict of interest with. There were nine directors who had a conflict of interest. In 82% of all the projects the Auditor General sampled, the directors had a conflict of interest.

To me, that's not representative of the green technology business; that's representative of a culture of entitlement and a culture of conflict. In fact, one director, Guy Ouimet, got enthusiastic about it and ended up having tens of millions of dollars for projects he had a conflict of interest on. They were brought back and approved by the fund, for which he was a board member. He was a government appointee. He admitted to the industry committee that he actually stayed in the room and voted for one of the projects himself, which was for $4 million to go to a company he had a financial interest in.

This process of how these continued appointments of people.... As MP Cooper said, it appeared that one of the qualifications—it's all I can see—required for being appointed to this board is to have a conflict. It's not that you don't have one, but that you do.

We need to see the “sausage making” behind this decision. Minister Bains, when he appeared, said he's responsible for appointments, but when the appointments came around and the performance of the appointments came around, he pointed to the PCO nine times in his testimony as the people who crafted the list, not him, although he admitted that he called some of them.

We've heard some interesting information today. It appears that the letter that was signed by the PCO and went to Minister Bains contained six names. Now, that's interesting, because the former president of the Liberal green slush fund, Leah Lawrence, said in her testimony that Minister Bains's office and the ADM who sat on the board from the industry department, ADM Noseworthy, told her to search for only two names.

We have this testimony that says the minister has the ability to pick off that list and vet them but tells the president to go after only two of the six we now know were presented. We also know from the testimony of the president that when she checked out the two, one of them said, “I have a conflict, so it's inappropriate for me,” and the other said, “I have a conflict, but it is appropriate for me.” That's the one who went forward, over the objections of the CEO, and whom Minister Bains recommended to cabinet.

Today, we've had PCO officials saying cabinet would know that people who are being appointed have a conflict of interest before they appoint them, yet they did it anyway. We ended up with this situation whereby $390 million, because of these Liberal appointments, went inappropriately outside of the terms of their funding by Parliament. In most of the cases—$330 million—it went to companies they had an interest in.

The only way we can get to the bottom, or at least to the next layer, of the intrigue of how taxpayer money was so abused is to actually get the documents my motion has asked for.

Just to be clear about what is in my motion, we're talking about the advice letter, the one that the PCO signs, from a committee that includes departmental officials and the Prime Minister's Office. They signed off on six names that went to the then industry minister, Minister Bains.

By the way, he was responsible for reducing cellphone bills. Ironically, he now works for Rogers, the most expensive cellphone company in the world.

He decided, clearly, through whatever vetting process he admitted in committee to having done, that out of that list, he wanted only two. He wanted only two conflicted people to be considered and vetted by the president. He then chose the one who was left standing when the other one withdrew. He didn't go back to the other four who were on the list that the PCO gave him.

Somebody—in his testimony he said that others were telling him to do this—told him that the one they wanted was Annette Verschuren. We have this massive PMO appointments secretariat that every appointment goes through. All the MPs here know this. All the Liberal staffers here know this. People like me, who have served in staff member roles in government, know the role played by PMO appointments. No appointment gets made without the vetting and approval of PMO appointments. The senior person in PMO appointments was referenced by PCO. In some cases, it's the Prime Minister who ultimately reviews that list to make sure that he himself is comfortable with it.

We have a clear line of responsibility for a chair who was hand-picked by the Prime Minister—his office—out of a list recommended by PCO, of somebody who, according to the Ethics Commissioner's report, says she was approached to be the chair. She didn't apply. According to the Ethics Commissioner's report, she was approached.

Now, she may have applied after the minister's office phoned her. She may have said, “Okay, I'll send my paperwork in through the site, meeting the technical requirements of this clear, open and transparent process.” However, at the end of the day, in the Ethics Commissioner's interview with her, she said it was the minister's office that approached her to be chair. That was the first time she had heard of it.

We have a lot of obfuscation and fudging going on. We have a lot of trying to bury the facts going on. I understand why they want to bury the facts, when $390 million of taxpayer money went missing. That is, to put it in perspective, almost 10 times more than the sponsorship scandal under the Liberal Chrétien government. That was $42 million. There was a public inquiry, and people went to jail as a result of that $42 million. The CFO from the industry department said that this was a bigger scandal than that, which is clear, yet government members are trying to downplay it: This is just the way business is. It's okay to appoint people with conflicts, and do you know what? They got out of the room.

Here's how it worked. Michael, Larry and I are on the SDTC board. Guess what happens? They disclose by testimony, by written testimony and verbal testimony, and by the Ethics Commissioner's report, at the beginning of the meeting that Michael, my fellow board member, has a conflict on this one, so he may or may not leave the room.

Michael chooses to leave the room. He goes out. Miraculously, when Michael comes back, the project that he has a conflict on gets approved.

Oh, look—Larry voted for Michael's project. Now Larry has a conflict, because it was declared at the beginning. Larry, out of the room.

Larry goes out of the room. Michael comes back in, and Michael and I approve Larry's project. Congratulations, Larry.

For 186 of the 226 projects that the Auditor General reviewed, 82%, these board members were conflicted. They didn't represent 82% of the green technology business, but they were using the board to further their own interests.

We need the minutes, the letter and the communications in order to clarify how this mess happened. I would urge all members, including government members—who I know believe in transparency, who I know are not happy with the fact that $390 million has been identified as conflicted, who I know want to get to the bottom of it and to the truth—to support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Yip, I see that you wish to speak. You have the floor, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Our witnesses have already confirmed that these documents have been submitted to the House, so I don't see the need to duplicate the work here. In fact, I can even read the motion that shows that it's already been put forth.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(16), the House proceeded to the putting of the question on the main motion, as amended, of Mr. Scheer (Regina—Qu'Appelle), seconded by Mr. Perkins (South Shore—St. Margarets), “That the House order the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and the Auditor General of Canada each....”

Oh, I'm sorry. I think I have the wrong motion here.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins thinks you have the right motion.

Ms. Yip, would you like me to come back to you? I can put you on the list.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yes, put me back on the list. I'm sorry. I thought I had the right....

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's okay.

I'll go to Mr. Cooper. Then it's Ms. Khalid's spot, and she might want to yield to you. If not, you'll come after her. Is that okay, Ms. Yip?

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Yeah, that's fine. I'm sorry.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

No problem.

Mr. Cooper, you have the floor.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to speak in strong support of this motion, which is imperative in getting to the bottom of how Annette Verschuren was appointed chair of SDTC—notwithstanding the fact that her companies had received $20 million dollars in funding, putting her in multiple conflicts of interest—and how it is that the first time in the history of SDTC that a chair was appointed, the Liberals decided to appoint an individual who had multiple conflicts.

What followed her appointment by the Liberals, by Minister Bains, was a corrupt racket in which taxpayers got ripped off as Liberal insiders got rich. That has been confirmed by the findings of the Auditor General, who found that $390 million of taxpayer money improperly went out the door, including 330 million taxpayer dollars that were funnelled into the pockets, or at least into the companies, of board members. The Auditor General identified 186 conflicts of interest. That is the result of Minister Bains's decision to appoint Annette Verschuren.

What we saw in multiple hearings, including those in which former minister Bains came in, obfuscated and refused to take responsibility, was a whole lot of smoke and mirrors. No one wants to take responsibility for the decision, even though we know that ultimately it was a decision made by Minister Bains. When he came to this committee, he said his responsibility as minister was to make appointments, but then when he was pressed about the appointment of Verschuren, he said, oh, well, it really wasn't my decision; there was a process. It was an open, transparent and merit-based process. It was led by PCO, and essentially PCO made the decision, and he had to live with it.

He didn't expressly state that, but that is in essence what his answers were when I repeatedly asked him if he accepted responsibility for the appointment of Verschuren. Not once did he acknowledge that the buck stopped with him, that it was his decision. He didn't take responsibility.

What's worse is that Minister Bains left this committee with the impression that he had two names: Verschuren and one other individual, who then withdrew. He left this committee with the impression, and he certainly didn't clarify the record, that the process was the process and he was respecting the process—nothing more than that. We now know that wasn't true. We know today that Minister Bains had six names that were provided in the advice letter from PCO. What happened to the other names?

It appears that they weren't considered, and that Minister Bains and the PMO were determined to appoint Verschuren. Why else is it that former CEO Leah Lawrence was specifically instructed by Minister Bains to talk to Verschuren, but she wasn't asked to talk to anyone else? Why? Why wasn't she asked to talk to the other four individuals? One withdrew because they had a conflict. What happened to the other four names?

Why was Leah Lawrence left with the impression that there were only two names, one of whom had withdrawn? Why did Minister Bains specifically identify Verschuren?

Again, I underscore that someone had conflicts of interest. To her credit—and I'll give her very limited credit—at least she identified that she had conflicts, but the minister evidently didn't give a damn about those conflicts. We now have what we have, which is $390 million of taxpayers' money that has essentially been misallocated, misappropriated and funnelled into the companies of a bunch of Liberal insiders. It makes the sponsorship scandal look small in comparison.

To that end, we need to get the letter; we need to get the minutes and we need to get the communications. We need to get to the bottom of what the hell was going on with the minister and with the PMO that led to the appointment of Verschuren. By the way, the documents produced by the government in response to the June order, to go back to the point that was raised by Ms. Yip, have not been tabled in the House; nor are they public.

Frankly, that was by deliberate design. First, it was to avoid the need for translation and all the delays that come with that. Second, it was to minimize any reasonable arguments the government might make to justify the redactions. Third, it was to be consistent with our motivations that the motion was about getting the information to the Mounties.

Where Ms. Yip was going, with the greatest of respect, is just not correct. It's not accurate, and it underscores why this motion needs to pass and why we need to get these documents, these communications, to this committee as expeditiously as possible. It's so that we can continue to probe to get to the bottom of how Canadian taxpayers got ripped off to the tune of $390 million and how Liberal insiders appointed by Navdeep Bains got rich.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Yip, Ms. Khalid yields to you. You have the floor.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak again.

I just want to reiterate once again that our witnesses have confirmed that these documents have been submitted to the House. As I said before, there's no need to waste time and duplicate work here. We're all going to have access to these documents, given that they have been deposited with the law clerk and parliamentary counsel.

I'll just continue where—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Pardon me, Ms. Yip. Ms. Khalid has a point of order.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to raise this. We have been here for many, many hours this week, and I have listened very respectfully to the points raised by my opposition colleagues. I am quite appalled by Mr. Cooper's saying, “Blah, blah, blah,” to what Ms. Yip has—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on, Ms. Khalid.

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

No, Chair. I'm going to raise this.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

On a point of order, I didn't say that.