Public Accounts Committee on Oct. 30th, 2024

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

I'm sorry; I didn't mean to interrupt.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You have time for a last question, Mr. Cooper, and not a long wind-up. You have time for a succinct question.

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

Former Liberal minister Bains, it's clear that you don't care about conflicts of interest and that you don't care about the stewardship of taxpayer dollars. As a result, $400 million improperly went out the door under your watch as minister. When I asked you whether you take responsibility, you couldn't even answer that. You have no shame.

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

That's terrible, Chair.

Why would you say that?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We'll move on now to Mr. Drouin.

You have the floor for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bains, I've heard a lot of sanctimonious accusations towards you, and I'm not going to repeat the line. However, you are a private individual, and I respect that. I hope that when former ministers come to this committee, we have the respect to treat them as private citizens.

The official opposition is making a lot of accusations, such as wasting taxpayer dollars or not being accountable, but I have yet to hear any member of the official opposition speak on their conduct of spending private taxpayer dollars on party conventions. I'm just waiting to hear if Mr. Perkins, Mr. Brock or Mr. Nater paid back the dollars. They want to come into power, yet they're lecturing us on the importance of spending taxpayer dollars. We stopped this practice in 2014, but the Conservatives haven't stopped that.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

How was Nanaimo?

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

Well, Nanaimo was not a party convention, Mr. Brock, and you should know that. There's a difference. That's why we stopped this practice in 2014.

As we say in French, just because something is legal doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.

On that, Mr. Bains, obviously you've come here for the third time, and the official opposition is trying to say that you should be the judge of conflict of interest. My question to you is this: Why do we have an Ethics Commissioner?

When you were appointed minister, obviously you had to go through a scrutiny, just like all members of Parliament, but there's a harder scrutiny on ministers in particular. You have to report everything to the Ethics Commissioner, but the onus is on you. Is that correct?

[Navdeep Bains]

First of all, I just want to start by saying that I very much respect the work that the committee members are doing and that parliamentarians do. As I said, I'm here to answer the questions, and I've been answering all the questions that have been posed to me.

With regard to the last question that was asked in terms of the responsibilities of public office holders, you're absolutely correct: The onus is on the individuals. I know of many instances of public office holders who have reached out to the independent Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to get advice, to get that impartial feedback, so that they can conduct themselves in a manner that allows them to fulfill their duties.

That is why I think the key take-away for members in this committee, if I may say so, is that the crux of the matter, the core matter here, is how individuals conduct themselves, and they must hold themselves to this high standard. That's really the issue here.

I think individuals were very clearly vetted and qualified. Individuals had the ability to serve. However, the issue with regard to their conduct and how they need to engage is done in a manner that needs to be consistent with the Conflict of Interest Act, and as the member rightly pointed out, the onus is on all public office holders.

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

That's right, and we do have an Ethics Commissioner who has produced a report on Ms. Verschuren. I think my colleague Mr. Erskine-Smith has properly quoted the issues about Ms. Verschuren. I want to confirm this, because I get the sense that we're trying to tie the decision-making directly to you or to the minister's office, but you or your staff were never involved in the day-to-day operations of SDTC. Is that correct?

[Navdeep Bains]

Mr. Chair, the member is correct. SDTC is an arm's-length organization. The management oversees the day-to-day operations, and there was no involvement from the department on the day-to-day decisions made by Sustainable Development Technology Canada.

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

What we're left with here are a few individuals who did not follow the act. They were properly appointed and followed the due process. We already know this because this is all public information. The Ethics Commissioner has already ruled on Ms. Verschuren, on her conduct, on the sections of the act that she contravened and on the sections of the act that she did not contravene.

Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Bains has made an appearance and I want to thank him for coming back here.

I will conclude my questioning because I think I have heard everything we need to hear on the particular matters of Mr. Bains and SDTC.

Thank you.

[Navdeep Bains]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to answer these questions in great detail. As I said, the work that the committee does is very important.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

We have a few more members remaining.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you may go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue my earlier line of questioning.

Mr. Bains, when Ms. Lawrence appeared before the industry committee, she was quite clear that she had told Mr. Noseworthy, the assistant deputy minister, about her concerns regarding Ms. Verschuren's conflicts of interest. She did so not once, but twice.

Does that surprise you?

[Navdeep Bains]

This was new information and something I heard about later on, but not during my tenure at ISED.

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

I see.

The fact that the president and CEO of SDTC said she considered Ms. Verschuren's appointment as board chair risky is a very important piece of information.

Do you think Mr. Noseworthy should have passed on that information to the deputy minister at least?

[Navdeep Bains]

There are potential routes for how that could be addressed. One such route is that the individual—in this particular case, Ms. Verschuren, for example, whom we're talking about—did seek the advice and counsel of the conflict of interest commissioner.

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

Thank you, Mr. Bains.

I don't have a lot of time, and you've already said that.

When it comes to the process of appointing someone, the fact that Ms. Verschuren had an apparent conflict of interest and that the president and CEO of SDTC had flagged it several times is highly pertinent information.

You were the minister for more than five years and appointing this individual was the minister's responsibility. Don't you think, then, that it is the assistant deputy minister's job to advise the deputy minister of a major conflict of interest in relation to an appointment process? In this case, the minister's office and, by extension, the minister should have been informed as well.

Did you just have blind trust in the department?

[Navdeep Bains]

No. I would respectfully say to the member that it was the vetting process, which I respected a great deal and was led by the PCO, that would make recommendations. That gave me confidence that the individuals met the criteria.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's all for me.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Cannings, you have the floor, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thanks.

I will continue on. I'm trying to stick with things that are clearly your responsibility, or were your responsibility, Mr. Bains.

One of those, as I mentioned before, is that under the act, the minister is responsible for ensuring that board members are appointed, or at least seven out of the 15 are, I think, and yet there were times, as I mentioned, when those numbers declined drastically. I can't imagine how the board would properly function with only three of those members.

I'm wondering what the process was for appointing the board members that you were responsible for. Were the searches and the openings initiated by the PCO? Who put that out? Was it through your staff, and then to the PCO and then back to you? What was the process, and why did it fail?

[Navdeep Bains]

All these appointments were made public through an appointments website that's available to everyone. There could be potential gaps, for a whole host of reasons, in terms of delays or when an appointment is made depending on the vetting process and the number of appointments, etc. However, as I said, and as the member has indicated, the responsibility of the minister of ISED was to appoint seven of the 15 members. That's what I did during my tenure: I appointed individuals.

Again, these individuals have to go through that vetting process. In some instances, that could take a bit longer than anticipated because there were so many people applying. When you start a new appointments process as well, you want to make sure it's properly resourced, so there could be some growing pains associated with that timeline.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

That's all I have, Mr. Chair.