Public Accounts Committee on Sept. 5th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Hold on. All right, quiet all around. This is not—

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

I heard you from across the room. I heard you from across the room.

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

I said, “Wrong, wrong, wrong.” She's wrong. This is based on the submission I made.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Cooper, Ms. Khalid—

Okay, Mr. Cooper, this is not a point of order.

Ms. Khalid, you are the next speaker. You'll be able to address this in due course, and Mr. Cooper, I'm sure, will have a response at that point.

Ms. Yip, you have the floor again.

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

Thank you.

I will continue to make sure that this is heard correctly:

(a) all files, documents, briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or any other correspondence exchanged among government officials regarding SDTC;

(b) contribution and funding agreements to which SDTC is a party;

(c) records detailing financial information of companies in which past or present directors or officers of SDTC had ownership, management or other financial interests;

(d) SDTC conflict of interest declarations;

(e) minutes of SDTC's Board of Directors and Project Review Committee;

(f) all briefing notes, memoranda, e-mails or other correspondence exchanged between SDTC directors and SDTC management; and

(g) in the case of the Auditor General of Canada, any other document, not described in paragraphs (a) to (f), upon which she relied in preparing her Report 6—Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which was laid upon the table on Tuesday, June 4, 2024;

provided that

(h) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly thereafter notify the Speaker whether each entity produced documents as ordered, and the Speaker, in turn, shall forthwith inform the House of the notice of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel but, if the House stands adjourned, the Speaker shall lay the notice upon the table pursuant to Standing Order 32(1); and

(i) the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith with any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

I feel that we have wasted enough time, and we should move on and not duplicate the work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor. Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

As I was saying earlier, you know, we have spent a significant amount of time going over, reviewing with a fine-tooth comb—as we should, as is the role of the public accounts committee—reviewing and ensuring that the taxpayer dollars are spent effectively, that there is effective oversight. We do that by reviewing the reports of the Auditor General. We do that by having the Auditor General here before us in committee to ask questions on her recommendations. We do that by raising awareness of any issues and challenges and any discrepancies in process. SDTC has been one of those files.

I agree a hundred per cent with what Mr. Perkins has said with respect to the fact that every single member on this committee, regardless of which side of the aisle we sit on, cares about how public dollars are spent, about oversight and about the responsibilities of our committee and how we conduct ourselves.

Every single member on this committee has a viewpoint, has an angle from which we perceive what is going on here with our own lived realities and with the realities of what is going on in our constituencies.

I just want to get this off my chest before I go into the specifics of the motion before us.

Things do get heated, of course, but I want to remind members that we're all on the same committee here. We all have the same objectives here with respect to what we're trying to achieve. That doesn't mean we should be disrespecting members on this committee. That does not mean we should be disrespecting the witnesses who come before us. I think we all have the ability to conduct ourselves in a professional manner, to ask the questions that are necessary and to find ways to improve efficiencies for the issues that we are dealing with.

That issue...and I'll remind all members in this committee and anybody who is watching that the ultimate objective of the role of the public accounts committee is to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively and efficiently, that rules are followed and that the Auditor General's reports are implemented with the will of this committee.

It really troubles me, Mr. Chair, when I hear members mocking others who are not in the room but are here virtually, making a mockery of what they're saying, because I think every single person's viewpoint matters on this committee, including Mr. Cooper's, including Mr. Brock's, including Mr. Perkins's, including Madame Sinclair-Desgagné's and Mr. Desjarlais's, and including yours, Mr. Chair. I give a lot of respect and creed to that, and I think that we should all have some respect for what we all have to say on this committee because I think, ultimately, we are all coming from a good place.

That kind of leads me into this motion and where we are going from here.

Now, we heard from witnesses many, many times that the issues that are addressed in this motion or the production or the documents that are requested have already been tabled in the House, so I'm not sure why we need to duplicate the work of what has already been done unless we're looking for clicks, unless we're trying to.... I, honest to God, can't even begin to fathom why we would want to duplicate the work that all parliamentarians at the House of Commons have already conducted.

It's interesting where we're going from here. I would have preferred to go on to committee business and discuss a very important motion that has been presented by Mr. Perkins.

Chair, I think perhaps I can make a small amendment to this motion that would improve efficiency in how we're conducting ourselves as a committee with respect to the production of documents. I would put forward an amendment to strike “(b) the minutes of all meetings of the selection committee that considered the appointment”.

The reason is that, as we heard from the PCO officials themselves, these meeting minutes don't exist. I mean, it's odd that we'd request something that officials just indicated do not exist. I think the PCO officials were on the record as saying that. Unfortunately, it's pretty clear that the CPC, the Conservatives, drafted this amendment well in advance and that the witness testimony was a prelude to this motion rather than actually for listening to what the witnesses had to say—taking that and owning it, learning from it and moving beyond it. I would really appreciate our acknowledging that a lot of the documents that have been stated in this motion have already been deposited with the law clerk.

That is my amendment, Chair. Again, I would like to strike (b), which states, “the minutes of all meetings of the selection committee that considered the appointment”. That's the only intervention I have so far, but I would like to be put on the bottom of the list.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Desjarlais, you are at the top of the list to speak to the motion. There's an amendment to strike (b). I have Mr. Perkins ready to speak to it, since it's his motion. Do you want to speak to the amendment to the motion, or would you like to just stay at the top of the list so that we can get back to this matter? The floor is yours, if you want it.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'd be happy to have Mr. Perkins respond, if it brings clarity, but after that I'd like to speak to the main motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Yes. There are no other hands, so that can happen.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate that, but for the record, although we don't have the minutes of this committee meeting yet, my recollection of the answer to my question about the PCO and whether anyone in the room objected to her appointment because of the conflict of interest, is that the officials actually said they went back and checked the record, i.e., the minutes, and the minutes don't reflect that detail of the conversation. She did not say there weren't minutes; there are minutes—

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

I didn't hear that.

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

That's what she said. She said they didn't keep minutes of whether or not somebody objected. There are minutes. There are records of the meetings.

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

I apologize for interrupting.

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

That's okay.

My only response is that I think part of understanding the process is understanding what the minutes reflect in the decision-making process and the discussion that happened around the replacement of Jim Balsillie as the chair with a new chair on fairly short notice. As I said earlier, we've had a lot of conversation around this. Was it 10? Was it less than 10? Was it six? Was it two? We need the minutes, combined with the letter, combined with the other testimony, to get to the bottom of it. Personally, I think we need all three.

With regard to the tabling in the House, as MP Cooper said, just for the record, those documents have not been tabled with the House. They are in the process. Many of them have been redacted, contrary to the House order. There will be issues about that when the House comes back. To say that these documents are available now....

I would love the clerk to call the law clerk and ask for these documents, so that they could share them with the committee. I'm pretty certain I know what the law clerk would say: I don't have those documents, as you asked for, unredacted. He may not even have the documents at all. I do know, in the response from SDTC, that they're still in the process of providing the law clerk with documents. They have not provided the clerk with all of the documents. The PCO gave guidance to redact, contrary to the House order. I suspect that the PCO have redacted their own documents that they've given to the House, which won't tell us what it is that we're looking for. These are unredacted documents that we're looking for here, to ensure that we understand where the truth lies in this sordid tale.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

I have Mr. Desjarlais and then Ms. Khalid.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have the floor.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleagues for this discussion.

Mr. Perkins, thanks for your clarification. That was part of my questioning as well in response to the motion. I do know that we just heard from one of the witnesses that some of these documents were made available, but according to your explanation there are still some outstanding questions, and I think it is incumbent on our committee to try to answer as many questions of members as possible. Should any of the members' questions be answered, including mine, by way of this production of documents, I'd be happy to support that.

To the argument of Ms. Khalid regarding the striking of or amendment to (b), if in fact there are no documents to produce within the motion as originally stated, there will be no documents to review. If, however, we sustain (b), keep (b) in there, and there are one or two documents to reveal the facts related to Mr. Perkins' question as to who was in the room and whether or not they left and so on, those kinds of details, I think, are important, so for those purposes, I do agree with their original motion unamended, and I think it serves both points, including the points made by way of the amendment presented by Ms. Khalid.

I really think we should, if we can, get to a vote on this. I think it would be a regular vote. It's uncontroversial in the sense that, at the very basic level and foundation of all of our work, our job is to make sure that we have all the evidence we possibly can for the purpose of our study. Mr. Perkins' motion serves that end, and to that I agree. I'm happy to go to a vote if, Chair, you see that as being important at this time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Desjarlais.

Before that, Ms. Khalid has the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to correct the record. The PCO officials said the minutes were transitory records and wouldn't exist at this point, so that's why they haven't been provided to the House.

I want to go back to my point and say that if we know and have been told that something does not exist, what's the point of asking for it? Are we trying to make a political statement, or are we trying to fix an issue we have identified here? What would be the purpose of getting these records? I'm still trying to figure this out.

We've had a lot of meetings on this. To Mr. Desjarlais's point, he wants to get back to our study. Well, what's the purpose of this study at this point? We have brought so many broad-ranging issues into this that I think it's not just me but a lot of members on this committee who have lost focus of why we're doing what we're doing here.

The original point, I will reiterate, is for us to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being used effectively and efficiently for Canadians. If that's not happening, how do we make sure it happens?

We're looking at SDTC to figure out what has happened. We know that as soon as the minister realized there was wrongdoing, he took action right away. We are continuing down this path to ensure that this doesn't happen again.

In fact, I'm looking forward to debating Mr. Perkins' motion on the next steps, which we'll hopefully do before time runs out in this committee. There's the production of documents that are already available in the House to all members. They will be, Mr. Perkins. Knowing that those documents don't exist, asking for further documents with informal meeting minutes, which we know don't exist and the PCO officials have confirmed don't exist.... I'm really not sure how that helps us further this study at all.

I hope members will support my amendment to strike what is blatantly obvious and what we've already been told by PCO officials. These transient minutes, scribbles on a notebook or whatever they may be, do not exist, so why are we asking for them, other than...? I don't know what kind of political advantage anybody would be able to gain from them.

Again, I would encourage members to say, look, let's be efficient. Let's focus on what is important here. Let's ensure that we're trying to find positive solutions to what needs to be done, which is making sure that public dollars are used efficiently and effectively, and where there are issues, challenges or wrongdoing, they are corrected immediately and efficiently.

Is this going to get us to do that? No. Therefore, to my point, I would again tell members this amendment is necessary for efficiency, to make sure that we're not going down rabbit holes that take us away from the main focus of this study, which is improving efficiency and transparency within the SDTC and within government institutions.

I will park my comments there.

I'm not sure who is speaking next.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. I have a list.

Mr. Desjarlais, I see your hand went up first. You have the floor.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to respond to the amendment proposed by Ms. Khalid. In (b), I understand that the issue is related to the potential that no documents could be produced, given the witnesses' comments about the transitory nature of minutes. It's my understanding that at the very least, given the transitory file policy within the Government of Canada, some minutes will be made available. Depending on the particular type of document, it could exist for up to seven years.

It's not as though it was two months or one month. Some documents, depending on the nature of their information, although being declared transitory, might have a longer transitory policy period—up to seven years—and then might not be destroyed. I think that would be the other interpretation of what the witness said. They might be destroyed, yes. That is in fact a true statement, but they also might not be.

I often bring up the scoping purposes of a motion in these committees, and I always endeavour to ensure that we have the greatest scope when it comes to the secondment of documents, but that's towards a very narrow end. If that narrow end is to ensure that we get all pertinent information related to how conflicts of interest, particularly the appointment process, take place and if members have outstanding questions, I do believe it is good that they be included within the original motion.

I just want to speak to the comment on whether or not they may exist with respect to the nature of transitory files. For that reason, I think the motion, unamended, is a good motion. If there are no documents related to section (b), then there will be no documents supplied.

I think that's as simple as I can make it, Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Bradford, you have the floor.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's no question that this matter before us regarding SDTC is important to all of us. It's important to the public accounts committee and all the members here, regardless of our political persuasion. We do want to understand what went wrong in order to make sure this doesn't happen again.

The whole point of our study is to review the AG's report on this matter, which identified problems, which we're delving into.

However, having said that, I must also say that, with all due respect to Mr. Perkins, I'm perplexed about the necessity or relevance of this additional motion. I don't really understand why we're asking for things that have already been provided to the House, which all parliamentarians will have access to, plus other documents that we've been told don't exist. Neither one of those parts of the motion seems to accomplish or add anything additional or further to advance our discussion and study of this topic.

That's my particular feeling on the matter, and I just don't really see....

I think the seriousness and the importance of this study were clearly demonstrated by this committee in the motion we passed just the day before yesterday, in which we agreed to bring 30 additional witnesses before this committee, who will probably have some new, important information to add. We will be able to hear their perspective on what happened and how they were involved.

I think that clearly demonstrates that we at this committee—or certainly on our side of the House, and I think on all sides—take this very, very seriously, and I think that's a relevant exercise and a good use of our time.

However, these committee meetings are expensive, and I just don't see why we spend so much time debating motions that aren't really going to advance the discussion in the study. They're dealing with documents that, we've been told, either don't exist or have previously been provided to the House.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Next up to speak is Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I haven't discussed the motion yet, and I know we're discussing the amendment right now.

Surprisingly, I agree with Mr. Desjarlais. I think the original motion makes more sense and that these documents could help answer the legitimate questions we've raised.

I would also like us to move to a vote as quickly as possible to avoid delays.