Sure.
We have evidence against this backdrop that has been produced in the last several weeks that an assistant deputy minister of Minister Champagne's department actually attended each and every board meeting at SDTC. Clearly, he should have brought all of these issues regarding the conflicts of interest to the attention of his deputy minister, who in turn reports directly to Minister Champagne. Therefore, to suggest that Minister Champagne only found out about the issues in the fall of 2023, I believe, is disingenuous.
To further reinforce that point, Mr. Chair, we have the tape-recorded conversations with Assistant Deputy Minister McConnachie, who didn't realize he was being recorded by the whistle-blower. McConnachie was very, very concerned, to the point of simply saying—and I'm paraphrasing—“The minister's going to freak out. Minister Champagne is going to freak out when he hears about what's going on at SDTC. He's going to want to shut it all down.”
Now, are we to believe—are Canadians expected to believe—that the strong commentary from the assistant deputy minister was not shared with the DM or Minister Champagne? I think that's a pretty big stretch.
Again, these are my words, Chair, not the words of the whistle-blower. The integrity and character of Minister Champagne are clearly at issue here.
What we also found out on Tuesday—and this is from questions I put to the representatives of the NRC—is that they're not supervising or monitoring what's going on currently at SDTC. They have nothing to do with it. To our point that we made on Tuesday, Mr. Chair, it's essentially the same old operations at SDTC, with a new chair and two new directors.
Now, I had questions to put to NRC officials, but I chose not to ask them because, clearly, they would have said to me, “I'm sorry, Mr. Brock. We don't know that answer.” One question would have been, “What are the reinforced terms of the contribution agreement?” We know it's not listed anywhere on the ISED website. It's not listed anywhere on the SDTC website. What does “reinforced contribution agreement” mean?
We, as parliamentarians, Mr. Chair, should have access to those agreements so that we can review the terms and determine whether they're consistent with the old contribution agreements that were so readily not followed. That's a concern we have that's reflected in the motion.
The other issue is where he says his department “will enhance oversight and monitoring of funding”. What does that mean? We simply don't know. To what extent are the new chair and the new directors providing appropriate governmental oversight to the same old SDTC? We simply don't know.
Therefore, I think it's incumbent upon this committee, sir, to obtain those documents, verify that they do exist, and determine, contrast and compare how they improve the oversight mechanism and how they provide assurances to Canadians that we're not going to go down the same old road of Liberal insiders greasing their pockets again on the taxpayer dime.
I hope every committee member will find favour in having access to documents so that we can discharge our respective responsibilities. What we need here is transparency. What we need here is accountability. We all know that sunshine is the best recipe for transparency. That's why I think this motion has merit, and I would encourage all my colleagues to support it.
Thank you.