Evidence of meeting #139 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was sdtc.
A video is available from Parliament.
September 18th, 2024 / 5:30 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
The same conflicted companies are still getting paid now. Is that right?
As an Individual
Exactly. The findings that were the findings used to suspend SDTC were known to the federal government all the way back in May 2023. There was a five-month period during which the minister's office and the PMO knew that there was a significant level of conflict of interest and a significant issue on ineligible projects. During those five months, they did nothing to stop this, and even after they suspended SDTC, the projects that were noted to have broken conflicts and were ineligible were still given funding, even after SDTC was suspended.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Right. We've heard, and I believe it to be true, that the “new” SDTC is the exact same as the old one. I don't have any confidence that things have improved since the Auditor General's report. The interim board is now, effectively, in charge of its own oversight.
Should we be concerned about how many more millions are being doled out improperly in the coming six months?
As an Individual
Absolutely. The biggest risk I see with the situation is the fact that SDTC is going to hire their own consultants to review how they fix the situation. I think they've mentioned hiring Deloitte to review how they fix the eligibility issues and conflicts. Again, I think we can all agree that none of the executives should have any say in what they've done and then have an ability to try to fix the situation. Deloitte itself, and any of these consulting companies, if we're being serious here, you can pay them to say anything. If they get paid enough by SDTC to say that everything is good, they will do it, just like Osler did for SDTC when their board investigated themselves and exonerated themselves in direct opposition to even the RCGT report.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much. That is the time.
Ms. Bradford, you have the floor for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to continue along my previous line of questioning when I was asking you to give some specific examples about the toxic workplace and the abuse and harassment of staff.
When you appeared at the INDU committee on December 11, 2023, you testified at length regarding this. You actually provided a package that included evidence of the toxic workplace culture that was created by the CEO, Leah Lawrence, and her friend and current VP, Zoë Kolbuc, who were allowed to continue abusing and harassing employees by a passive senior management team and board that protect and hide the abuse.
I would like you to elaborate, as you did at that committee, so we have it on record here, exactly on the abuse and harassment you were talking about.
As an Individual
All right. There were multiple instances of shouting at employees in public situations. There were multiple instances of racist comments to employees, including myself, by Zoë Kolbuc. There were instances at the board level where another executive who had a hijab was asked to take off her hijab.
How much do you really want me to list here?
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
List as much as you can easily recall because this is important testimony for us to get on the record.
As an Individual
A bunch of employees were put on stress leave—not the ones I mentioned, but ones prior to that and after I had left SDTC.
In a certain situation, I think they hired Mercer to change the salary levels, at which point the CEO and Zoë intervened to personally change the numbers to effectively give themselves and others a salary increase that was not what Mercer had provided.
I guess we can spend the five minutes thinking about all the abuses that happened.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
I want to ask you this, then. McCarthy Tétrault was tasked with conducting a fact-finding review of alleged breaches of labour and employment practices and policies at SDTC. The allegations that you brought forward today seemingly fit exactly with McCarthy's mandate. NDAs were waived so the participants, both invited and voluntary, could speak freely about their past or current employer.
Did you or anyone from the group of fellow whistle-blowers participate in the review?
As an Individual
I participated. I found it to be useless. For example, if you read what the McCarthy Tétrault disclaimer says, it says that none of the testimony from any of the employees is to actually be relied on.
When employees within SDTC or outside were asking to have their NDAs removed, that actually went directly to the executives. Employees who were inside SDTC were actually named and executives who shouldn't have known that they were asking to speak.... Their identities were released by McCarthy. How do you expect anything truthful to happen when McCarthy effectively released the names of every current and former employee to the same executives they are trying to bring some transparency against?
At the same time, when I'm talking about certain aspects of what McCarthy did or didn't do, there were certain situations where McCarthy purposefully chose to not speak to employees because it said that it had to see their faces. There were rules that McCarthy set where, when employees were worried about crying or about showing their faces even to McCarthy's lawyers, McCarthy said it would not interview them or take any of their testimony. As McCarthy described the process, it was only willing to do this and it would judge whether someone was truthful or not.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
They reviewed over 3,000 pages of documentation and spoke with over 62 interviewees, with almost an equal number of former versus current employees. The review lasted six months.
I'd like to pick out two conclusions of the review. On harassment, it found that, “Current or former executives did not engage in the type of repetitive, vexatious or major incident conduct that would constitute harassment, bullying or workplace violence under applicable standards.” Also, the notion of “a 'toxic workplace' was a minority view among the participants”.
It also found that “Decisions about restructuring or terminations—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Ms. Bradford, I don't want to cut you off, but you are at your limit.
If you want to ask a question, go ahead.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Can I just finish this sentence? Then I'm done.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
It also found this: “Decisions about restructuring or terminations were not made using discriminatory criteria, nor were they arbitrary and lacking reasonable business justification.”
I'm having a hard time squaring your testimony with the conclusions of the review.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
I'm going to come back for an answer. I'm sure you'll get an opportunity.
We will now give the floor to Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
For context, can you tell us when you worked for SDTC?
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
I'm trying to understand the situation. When SDTC funding for new projects was suspended in June, all funding should also have stopped going out to businesses.
How do you know that funding continues to be disbursed to businesses that were not eligible?
As an Individual
Are you asking about the funding being cancelled this June, or when they were suspended in October?
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Funding for some projects stopped last October, which was almost a year ago. However, based on your answer to my colleagues' questions, my understanding is that that money was still being disbursed to companies through SDTC.
Is that the case, or is my information correct, and all funding has been stopped?
As an Individual
At the time SDTC was suspended in October, they still allowed disbursements. They weren't allowed to approve new projects, but the projects that were already approved continued getting funding up until, I think, February or March of this year.
With regard to new funding, what's happened now is that, since the minister has dissolved SDTC, they've been told that disbursements can start, but disbursements haven't actually started. However, new project approvals have now started, so again, it's a mix of certain things happening all at the same time.