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.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
Can you give us some evidence of that? I don't know how you got that information. Is it through contacts that you still have at SDTC or through new companies?
Basically, I'm just trying to get at how you know there are new projects.
As an Individual
Yes, I speak to employees at SDTC all the time, so this is all information from inside that I'm giving you.
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
So, this is information that you got from current SDTC employees.
Mr. Chair, do I have time for a quick question?
Bloc
Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné Bloc Terrebonne, QC
You said that new projects are receiving funding, but that funding for other projects stopped around October of last year. Even projects that had already been approved stopped getting funding.
Do you think there might be some favouritism involving some companies that were approved and are legitimate but are no longer getting funding, and companies that are still getting funding because their project was already approved?
September 18th, 2024 / 5:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Witness 1, please provide a brief answer, and Madame Sinclair-Desgagné will come back to you if she needs to.
As an Individual
There was a grey area after the suspension where certain projects were approved by the board. The companies were informed, but the suspension basically stopped them from contracting and actually getting any of the funding, so a group of projects are sort of—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Next, we have Mr. Desjarlais for two and a half minutes, please.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to make two comments. One comment is on the fact that you've been asked, by this committee, about HR, and you've given some examples. Those examples have also been mentioned in the INDU committee. I appreciate your returning to that topic. I do want to give you an opportunity—for maybe 15 seconds, because my time is limited—to respond to my Liberal colleague's claim that there is or is not...or at least an attempt to, from my perspective, diminish what is a real instance of workplace abuse and harassment.
Could you please spend 15-20 seconds to explain or clarify?
As an Individual
I'd ask the committee member to give me an example where an organization has an amazing culture but then gets shut down.
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
Thank you very much for that.
The next portion of my questioning is with regard to the timeline. In the timeline you've given in your opening remarks, you mentioned this has been a two-year and ongoing pursuit of yours to get justice for Canadian taxpayers. You mentioned an instance where you brought this up with a Liberal MP.
Could you please describe, in very specific detail, the nature of that? Was it written? Was it a meeting? Was this something that happened in person? Was it virtual? Was it you? Was it a representative of his office?
As an Individual
I can show you my texts. I met George Chahal face to face, and I have text messages proving that this encounter happened.
What I find embarrassing about that whole situation is that, when SDTC was suspended in October, which would be almost 18 months after I had spoken to him, his chief of staff tried to convince me that it was George Chahal who had reported the situation to ISED. I think there's a big situation here where either George Chahal, an MP I voted for, lied to me or he's lying to the public. Did he forward my situation to ISED and it was ISED that ignored it, or is he just lying to save face?
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
I understand.
Then the second course of action you took was largely in pursuit of.... Within your pursuit of justice, did you attend any meeting with members of the PCO?
NDP
Blake Desjarlais NDP Edmonton Griesbach, AB
During those encounters, how did they respond to your original claim?
As an Individual
I think they took it seriously.
I would mention that every single decision that was made at ISED had PCO involvement from day one because members of SDTC's board were appointed by the Privy Council. It was stated to us across, basically, seven or eight meetings that any time there was a decision or finding within ISED, the bureaucrats were not able to move unless they spoke to both the minister's office and the Prime Minister's Office before the decisions were made. In every instance of that situation, nothing ever moved forward.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
As a note to some of the observers, there have been a couple of complaints or concerns that have come to me independently about noise in the background. I will just ask everyone, if you have conversations, to take them outside of the room, please. I would appreciate it.
I'll turn now to Mr. Brock for five minutes, please.
You have the floor.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, witness, for your attendance today. Thank you for your courage and bravery in coming forward and exposing the systemic corruption with this failed Liberal government. Canadians thank you. I personally thank you.
Now I want to start by focusing in on lies.
You referenced George Chahal either lying directly to you or lying to Canadians. He's a Liberal MP from Calgary. You've also made claims that Minister Champagne has deliberately misled or, in your words, lied to Canadians and lied to committee. You referenced in a recent post that there was an “egregious cover-up” over allegations of mismanagement and misconduct by SDTC. In essence, your position is that the minister and his office softened the final report of an investigation into governance and conflicts of interest at SDTC, in essence to protect Justin Trudeau's hand-picked conflicted chair, Annette Verschuren.
I take it that you're referencing two avenues of deliberate deceit by Minister Champagne: one in relation to the report when it was received and your allegation, sir, that it was manipulated or, in your words, softened, and the timing by which he shared the news with Canadians that he took action. Am I accurate in that assessment?
As an Individual
You're accurate.
I mentioned that there's a lot of public interest in this current parliamentary session with the potential of a vote of no confidence. I would say that the real vote of no confidence against the Liberal Party happened when the Auditor General made a decision to intervene. The Auditor General was the one who referenced the situation to PCO and ISED because the AG's office thought that this was a very simple situation to address. When the ISED minister decided not to act, that is when the AG's office intervened. That, in itself, is a bigger vote of no confidence against the government than anything else.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Sure.
Minister Champagne has proudly, on numerous occasions, talked about how efficiently he acted, displaying transparency and accountability to Canadians. You're claiming the complete opposite, that he took the report, manipulated the report, softened the language and then delayed doing anything, to protect the insiders who were currently governing SDTC. Is that correct?
As an Individual
Yes, it's correct. Any ruling party would not want this on its plate, so there is an obvious reason why nothing happened.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Okay. I'll stop you right there.
With respect to the 37 hours of recordings with the assistant deputy minister—correct me if I am wrong—the chain of command with respect to communication at that level is that the assistant deputy minister reports to the deputy minister of ISED, who then reports to Minister Champagne. Is that correct?