Evidence of meeting #144 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 point.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Nobody stole money from the BDC. You guys stole $400 million.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Okay, Mr. Perkins. We will be back to official opposition members soon.
Mr. Drouin, you have the floor again, please.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
He actually provides me a great segue.
They want to make Canadians believe Mrs. Verschuren is a Liberal, but like Mr. Perkins, she donated the same exact amount—$1,600—to a Conservative leader, a potential candidate and the last Tory candidate.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Neither did Jean Charest. What's good for the goose....
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Perkins, I can't stop....
The hypocrisy on the other side is astounding.
Conservative
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
—appointment of Ms. Verschuren,
who stole money.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Perkins, you can just cool your engines a bit.
Mr. Drouin, you have the floor again.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
It's all in the public records. I wonder if they were holding hands when they donated together.
Again, I warned at the last committee meeting that I'm not interested in going on a wild goose chase, and right now we are entertaining a wild goose chase. They're trying really hard to make a connection between a minister and some low-level bureaucrat who committed errors.
We're not saying, on this side, that they haven't committed errors. We agree. However, the idea that the minister was connected to that is baloney. It's just baloney.
Conservative
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Brock, if you were in a courtroom, you would have been fired and disbarred from the Law Society of Ontario.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
I could draw one dot to the second dot, right to the minister.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Gentlemen, we're doing ourselves no favours here.
I would ask that we respect Mr. Drouin's time.
You have the floor again.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Mr. Chair, my point is that I've read the transcript from Mr. Bains's appearance at the INDU committee. In the last six minutes, I have not learned anything new from Mr. Perkins's questioning other than the fact that they will interrupt Mr. Bains and they will ask them a yes-or-no question, knowing full well that he does not know the answer because SDTC is arm's length, and it's always been arm's length. The idea that the minister has direct control over the decisions and the financial decisions—
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
They had an ADM in every meeting. Do your homework. You've only been here five meetings.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
—of SDTC is out of touch.
Mr. Chair, with all—
Mr. Perkins maybe has a right.... Maybe his experience at BDC—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Drouin, I'm just going to try to bring order here.
Ms. Khalid, if you have a point of order....
I appreciate everyone saying point of order, otherwise I just think you're participating in the bunfight that's going on.
It is a point of order, so yes, go ahead please.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I would appreciate it if colleagues could not holler and yell and shriek across the way. My colleague is sitting right beside me, and I can't even hear him due to all of the shrieking that is happening from those folks over there.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you, Ms. Khalid. I too would appreciate that.
Again, unfortunately, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so I would ask that all sides refrain from speaking when an individual has the floor.
Mr. Drouin has the floor, please.
Liberal
Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I can tell I'm ruffling some feathers, if we want to talk about geese and ganders and whatnot.
Perhaps Mr. Perkins has some other idea of how boards work. Perhaps he was breathing down the neck when he was appointed at the BDC, and perhaps ministers' offices were breathing down his neck to make decisions, but that's not how we operate. We changed the process. We changed the way people are appointed to different boards, and it's actually on websites, so the idea that these were some secret Liberal board appointees and that it somehow benefited our friends and blah, blah, blah.... Well, I'm still waiting for my friends to say, “Thank you so much, Frank, for having contributed to my personal wealth.” I have none.
I'll go back again to the rationale as to why Mr. Bains is here. It's because there was some....
Conservative