Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 7th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm sorry; are you moving it or are you tabling it?

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

I'm moving it.

Could the clerk circulate it to members?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We'll wait until you've read it out first, to make sure that it aligns with anything the clerk may have received.

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

I'm moving this motion:

That, in relation to the committee's ongoing study of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, and given that:

(i) former SDTC board member Andrée-Lise Methot received SDTC funding for Cycle Capital investments while she was on the board of SDTC, despite being both the founder and beneficial owner of the venture capital firm; and given that

(ii) Minister Steven Guilbeault previously served as strategic adviser for Cycle Capital for a decade prior to running for office and was awarded shares as part of his compensation at Cycle Capital that he continues to hold;

the committee therefore invite Minister Guilbeault to appear, to speak to his past affiliation with the venture capital firm and whether he has been involved in any decisions related to SDTC since joining cabinet.

For those of you who are new to this issue and are on the committee—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Give me just one second, Mr. Perkins.

The clerk's going to distribute it. I'm going to allow Mr. Perkins to speak for a few minutes, and then I'm going to suspend for a couple of minutes after that.

Ms. Morgan, in the meantime, hold fast. You're welcome to stretch your legs, freshen up or anything like that. Just don't go too far. Sometimes these things resolve themselves quickly—we have 10 minutes left—and sometimes they don't, in which case I might very well excuse you.

For now, please feel free to get up and stretch your legs. Just don't go more than five or 10 minutes away. Thank you.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Auditor General identified a number of board members who had conflicts of interest. The one who had the most by far on the Auditor General's list was Andrée-Lise Méthot. Her firm, which she founded in 2009, called Cycle Capital, is a firm that invests in green technology. It's based in Quebec and has had considerable business.

The green slush fund is at a little over $1 billion since its inception, including those projects identified by the Auditor General and others that Andrée-Lise Méthot identifies on her own website that she's invested in. The total so far is—are you waiting for it—$250 million of green slush fund money. A quarter of the green slush fund money has gone into organizations and businesses that Cycle Capital has an investment interest in.

Now, on the wonderful website that was in the news on the weekend, called LinkedIn, you can find out wonderful and incredible information. The current radical Liberal environment minister Guilbeault proudly lists that he was the strategic counsel for Cycle Capital for a decade before he was elected in 2019.

Guess what he did in that role? He was the paid in-house lobbyist. During his time as a paid lobbyist for Cycle Capital, Cycle Capital received $172 million of the $250 million that came out of the green slush fund. In the year and a half before Minister Guilbeault was elected in 2019, he lobbied the PMO and ISED 25 times, according to the lobbyist registry, on behalf of Cycle Capital, for SDTC funds. He was a very successful lobbyist, obviously, and as part of Minister Guilbeault's reward, he got shares as compensation in Cycle Capital. Those shares are not held in a blind trust. They are publicly available to see on his conflict of interest disclosure through the Ethics Commissioner's office. He still owns those shares.

Since he joined cabinet, in the dying days of former minister Navdeep Bains' time as the minister of industry, Cycle Capital received $750 million of additional money. Former minister Navdeep Bains, you'll recall, is now selling the largest and most expensive cellphone plans in the world. Rogers, as his reward for bringing down Rogers' cellphone rates, rewarded him with a job to promote the most expensive cellphone company in the world.

He gave Cycle Capital $750 million while Minister Guilbeault was in cabinet. For 40 months or so, while Minister Champagne was the minister and had a senior assistant deputy minister in every investment committee and board meeting, 82% of the time they were voting on conflicts of interest, including declared conflicts of interest in companies that Andrée-Lise Méthot owned through Cycle Capital, which Minister Guilbeault has shares in to this day.... That happened

Not only does the line extend from the Prime Minister's Office, which hand-picked and appointed the chair over her conflicts, even though it was warned about them—the PCO has said that's where it came from—and not only has the Prime Minister's Office tried to thwart the House of Commons by asking departments to redact their documents from the disclosure the House of Commons asked for from SDTC, but we have an actual minister of the Crown, who happens to be the minister of the environment, who might have some interest in SDTC and its performance and is actually financially gaining from it.

By that, I mean that Cycle Capital, since Andrée-Lise Méthot was put on the board in 2016, tripled in value, from $200 million to $600 million. It's a pretty good return for all of this.

As we know, because we've had lots of testimony on it, when a company received a grant from SDTC, it was like a stamp of approval from the Government of Canada. This allowed those companies to then go out and arrange for other funding, which they may otherwise have had difficulty getting. It was not just funding from other parts of the government, but generally raising capital.

Minister Guilbeault needs to attend our study. He was not on our original list, but evidence has come up as a result of the examination of his public disclosure. I believe he needs to be accountable to this committee and testify as part of our ongoing examination.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

As I said, I'm going to suspend for just five minutes. When I come back, I'll hear from Ms. Khalid and then Mr. Erskine-Smith and anyone one else who wants to join the speaking roster.

We'll be back here in five minutes.

This meeting is suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I will bring this meeting back to order. I do have extra time for this meeting. I have asked you to consult with your whip offices if that's going to be a challenge. For the new members, I tend to run the clock the same way a European football referee does: time is added and we'll just proceed until the time runs out.

On the speaking list, Ms. Khalid is first up.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor on the motion.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'm just reviewing the text of the motion, and I can't help but think about how many different versions of the same motion we've been trying to get through this committee, specifically with respect to Minister Guilbeault. I know that last month we voted and the motion did not pass to include Minister Guilbeault. I'm not sure what he has to contribute.

I've been sitting here over these 22 meetings we've had on this specific issue, and I can't help but see how many repeated questions there are. It seems like your neighbour's cousin's friend's dog sitter is somehow related to what we're studying here. The fact that we are going down this path really makes me think about the government resources that we spend on this. It really makes me think about all of the extra redundancy that we're seeing on different committees, whether it's this one, INDU, OGGO or so many others. The Conservatives keep trying to tie this to the Prime Minister. I think the fact that over 22, 23 or 24 meetings later they still haven't been able to do so is quite telling.

We can absolutely go down this path. I'm sure that Minister Guilbeault will come here. He will have lots of great things to say. He'll have a good-news story about how the clean-tech sector is really propping up Canada's economy and how we're doing well in that sector. I think he will have good-news stories to tell about how SDTC has, over this decade, been able to prop up that sector and how that transition is going to be good for transparency, how it's going to be good for accountability and how it's going to be good for that sector, but I don't think that's what the Conservatives want to really hear. I don't think they want to hear the good-news stories at all. I think they're really in the mindset of finding any way to tear Canada down, regardless of how they do it. What they're trying to achieve here, and how, is really disappointing.

There is no evidence. This committee is not a courtroom. We should leave it up to the people who make the decisions as to how this should happen and leave it to their independence as to how this is going to happen. We are not in that business. We are in the business of ensuring what happens going forward. We are in the business of ensuring that there is increased transparency, that there is increased accountability and that we are doing right by our institutions and continuing to build public trust within our institutions and amongst Canadians as well.

I find that this motion is redundant. It has already been discussed and passed. I'm surprised, Chair, that you did not rule it out of order, because it addresses the exact same issues that we have discussed here over these past 23 or 24 meetings we've now had on this issue. I'm hoping we can move on to more important issues that this committee has on its agenda at this point in time, and I'm sure Mr. Desjarlais would agree that we do have some very important reports we need to get to so that we can continue to do the work that Canadians expect us to do. This is absolutely not it.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Before I turn to Mr. Erskine-Smith, this just a flare I'll send up. I'm still not quite sure if this is going to be a quick matter or an extended matter. I'm going to ask Ms. Morgan just to hang tight.

After a few more members speak, I might seek consent to excuse you, but if members would like you to wait, you'll have to wait.

You can get back on the list, Ms. Khalid, if you'd like, but I'm going to turn to Mr. Erskine-Smith now.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Before I get to the substance of this, I emailed you, Chair, previously raising concern around just the communication with members of this committee about extended time. We all have schedules, and I'm fine to take the time when I know I have the time and notice is given. However, if the normal practice here is to, at the last minute, call an audible...then you have to treat us with some basic respect and communicate to us as members that this is going to happen. That is why notices are sent, Chair, and again, I'm just looking for basic respect across the aisle.

Now, substantively, Mr. Perkins suggested that I'm new to this. Well, I'm new to this. If there's proper corruption—there's evidence that that corruption is criminal wrongdoing—let's collectively get to the bottom of this across the aisle. Of course, let's do that. However, when Mr. Perkins says, well, the RCMP has opened an investigation, then I go and look into that claim. What do I read? I read a statement from the RCMP that says, “The RCMP has concluded that the available reports do not identify any criminal offences or evidence of criminal wrongdoing at this time”.

On the one hand, okay, I'm told there's an active investigation and I should take this seriously. Then I go and read what the RCMP have actually said, and they're saying the very same thing that I was saying at the outset, which Mr. Perkins was trying to contradict.

Again, if we're going to work together to get to the bottom of something, let's come at it with some semblance of good faith. For example, I just sat for two hours of a witness being berated, a witness who does not have any conflicts. This is a witness who is new to this, who is coming to help us solve this problem, not someone who was involved in the creation of the problem. We're berating her and treating her this like it's A Few Good Men, because she doesn't know the answers to the NRC and what the NRC is going to do with the file when it's transitioned ultimately to them. It's absurd.

Either we deal with this in a sensible, reasonable, thoughtful way or we deal with it like apparently we intend to deal with it, as I just watched for the last two hours. Yes, the witness could absolutely have been clearer. If a project is ineligible, what is going to happen with it? There are categories here where ineligibility, conflicts.... There are certain categories where we should have full disclosure of how the board intends to deal with these things. However, we could have a thoughtful, reasonable discussion with someone who wasn't part of the problem, and we could actively try to solve it together instead of berating them in the most inappropriate way.

Now, as for this particular motion, I have no real objection to this other than that I would love to know why we're not hearing from.... I think we already have Andrée‑Lise Méthot on the witness list. I would have no objection to this, but for that it appears to be a fishing expedition. I don't have any evidence in front of me that Guilbeault has done anything untoward. I don't have any evidence in front of me to suggest that he's done anything wrong.

I'm fine. If we're in the business of a fishing expeditions, so be it, but it would make a lot more sense to me if we were dealing with this in a more thoughtful way. Bring the witness Andrée‑Lise Méthot, who I understand is already on the witness list. See what she has to say about her actions as a board member, but also vis‑à‑vis Cycle Capital investments, and if anything comes up that would suggest that the minister should be involved in our investigation and our committee meetings, then so be it. However, do we have any evidence in front of us at all that the minister has had a say and directed this arm's-length organization to make decisions? Do we have any evidence of any conversations between the minister and board members in relation to Cycle Capital investments and the decision-making in relation to distributing funds?

Again, let's get to the bottom of things. However, if it's a bad-faith fishing expedition, let's call it what it is, because that's what this looks like to me. If we want to get to the bottom of this, let's hear from the witness who was the board member, who has a beneficial interest in Cycle Capital investments. Let's get to the bottom of that first.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Drouin.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

If you recall, a few meetings ago I said I had no problems with looking at this particular matter, even though in my personal opinion I thought that after an Auditor General's Report, after a McCarthy-Tétrault report, after another RCGT report, and 22 meetings later we're still looking at it, I don't know what Canadians think about this, but either we're the most incompetent auditors on earth, or we're actually going to get serious about this.

I'm wondering again how many more meetings after we've already agreed to a plan, and now we're going on this—I know it's hunting season—wild goose chase to have the minister, Monsieur Guilbeault, in front of our committee. Why?

What are the allegations here? If Mr. Perkins knows something that I don't, then provide evidence to this committee because SDTC, as he full well knows, unless he doesn't know the cabinet process, but I know he knows, because he has worked in government before.... He fully understands that cabinet did not make individual decisions on contribution agreements for SDTC. He knows that. He also knows that Minister Guilbeault had nothing to do with that.

I'm here again, trying to be serious if we are to get to the bottom of this. I'm not saying there wasn't any wrongdoing. We know there was, but it's the linkage that they are trying to make with every single minister, or something that has “Liberal”. I notice that they like to repeat “corruption”, “Liberal”, time and time again. They probably get brownie points for that, I suspect, or maybe gold stickers—I don't know—or they are eyeing a cabinet position at some point.

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is, can we be serious about this? I will not be supporting a motion that invites Minister Guilbeault based on nothing. Maybe I have some mutual funds that I've declared as a conflict of interest. I don't know if they invest in...what's the company called, Cycle Capital? Maybe I should appear as a witness.

Where are we going with this?

I'm just asking, how many more meetings are we going to have? Are we going to actually be serious about this, or are we going to continue this committee? This committee used to do good work. It used to, and then it got too partisan.

We're looking into things that no longer make any sense. In the four meetings I've been on the committee, not a single member of an opposition party—whether it be the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois or the NDP—has taught me anything I didn't already know.

Members are asking witnesses whether SDTC is going to apologize, knowing that they don't even have all the details of the report. They are waiting for the report. Today's witness was even asked who had briefed her in preparation for her appearance before the committee. Those are the smart questions members want to ask. Frankly, can we be serious and not engage in partisan games?

Now we are talking about inviting Minister Guilbeault, after the committee had already decided to remove his name. That's the problem. I'm new to this committee, and I was told that decision had already been made. Now we may again have to consider inviting Mr. Guilbeault, even though the opposition knows full well that he has nothing to do with this whole thing. All the opposition members want is to be able to say that the minister refused to appear before the committee.

Get serious.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Next, is Ms. Khalid again.

You have the floor.

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

I think I will perhaps yield to Ms. Yip.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Actually, it's Mr. Perkins and then Ms. Yip.

Mr. Perkins, you have floor, please.

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

Just for the record, the study began in this committee in June of—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins, just for the—

Mr. Erskine-Smith, is your hand up to speak again, or is that a previous hand up?

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

That's to speak again, thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor.

I'm sorry, Mr. Perkins. I'm going to interrupt you, because I know you're never at a loss for words, and you will pick it right up again.

Could I get unanimous consent to excuse Ms. Morgan, please, and maybe hear yes or no.

[An hon. member]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Very good.

Ms. Morgan, can you just hang tight, please?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I just wanted to [Inaudible—Editor] our witness under the same advisement. I thought it would be good to dismiss our witness. That's all.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

All right. Very good.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor, from the top, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Liberals are saying that there have been 22 meetings. I know it's hard for them to keep their scandals straight. I think they're talking about arrive scam.

This study began in June. This is the eighth meeting, not the 22nd meeting. There have been 22 for arrive scam.

To answer a few of the questions, perhaps I'll start.

I understand that all of this information is publicly available. It's easy for MP Drouin or MP Nathan Erskine-Smith to do a bit of homework and actually go and learn about these issues, as I have done over the last year, since all of these companies that SDTC has given money to, as we've said earlier, are listed on their website. It's very easy to go and check not only the Auditor General's report but also the Cycle Capital list of ownership, and to cross-reference them. It's not difficult. It's there.

While Ms. Andrée-Lise Méthot was on the board, $114 million went to companies. We're talking about just while she was on the board. It was over 10% of the funds.

I know MP Erskine-Smith is reading from old information.

I'll update you, MP Erskine-Smith. Last Thursday, outside of the foreign interference inquiry, the RCMP commissioner was scrummed. That resulted in an article in the National Post on Friday and in the Toronto Star on Saturday. He was asked about what he had done with the documents.

Commissioner Duheme said, “The investigation is ongoing, so I’ll limit my comments to that.” The reporter asked again whether there was an investigation, to which Duheme responded that he had just confirmed that.

I know that perhaps the MP's information is old, but this is the latest status. It was in the papers. You couldn't have missed it on the weekend. I know MP Erskine-Smith reads the Toronto Star. He would have seen it there, at least, on Saturday. I don't know if he reads the National Post, but it was in there on Friday. The reporter reported it—