Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 18th, 2024

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

Mr. Knubley, I'm sorry, but my question was about his criticism of the government, not about the ongoing consultation and his role as SDTC chair.

[John Knubley]

I had no conversation with the minister in that regard.

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

Was your ADM, ADM Noseworthy, conveying those concerns on his own?

[John Knubley]

I don't think Mr. Noseworthy would have conveyed anything on a digital charter. His responsibility was the oversight of SDTC.

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

Perhaps the headset is not working well. It wasn't about the digital charter. It was about the public comments by the chair of SDTC, being critical of the government, and ADM Noseworthy asking the CEO whether or not she could get him to keep quiet.

[John Knubley]

I am not aware of that. I've never.... I'm not aware of it.

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

Why would ADM Noseworthy do that on his own?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Perkins. That is your time, I'm afraid.

I will turn now to Ms. Bradford.

You have the floor for six minutes, please, Ms. Bradford.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Knubley, for appearing today as a witness.

You're a former deputy minister of ISED. We've heard multiple witnesses state that it's customary for departments to send emails to stakeholders regarding appointment openings. Given that Ms. Verschuren served on the clean-tech strategy table and there was a working relationship with the department, would it have been customary to send Ms. Verschuren and other stakeholders an email notifying them of the opening or the appointment opportunity?

[John Knubley]

I think the short answer is yes, but let me explain. The way this works is that I would have asked—and I did ask—Andrew Noseworthy to reach out to the stakeholders in the clean-tech community. I understand that he had a list of about 250 stakeholders. Yes, Annette Verschuren would have been on that list.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Just to get it on the record—I know it's been a few years—would you be able to confirm to this committee if the department did, in fact, send out a mass email to stakeholders in September or in the fall of 2018? You just said that probably around 200 went out at that time.

Do you remember if the clean-tech strategy table members were included in the list? Would Ms. Verschuren have been one of those email recipients?

[John Knubley]

I think the answer is yes to all of these, but again, you would need to specifically ask Mr. Noseworthy about this. I would fully expect that on this large list of stakeholders, there would have been the members of the CEO-led sector table, as well as Ms. Verschuren.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Great.

The Privy Council Office has stated that the appointment process with regard to Ms. Verschuren was normal. It said there was nothing abnormal about the appointment process, and her name was provided to the minister via the habitual letter of advice.

Do you remember if there was anything abnormal, from your point of view, in the appointment process for the new SDTC chairperson in 2018-19?

[John Knubley]

I think what I should say on this is that my role in the appointment process, once I delegated it—and this is the normal deputy minister role—was to ensure that, from the department's perspective, the process was timely and taking place. That's my perspective and so, from that perspective, I am not aware of any unusual aspects of the process.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] had been sent up to the minister a month or two before the second letter. The latter recommended Ms. Verschuren's name. There were two short-listed names for chairperson. From your recollection, was it strange for the PCO to send up a second letter of advice? Did the first two individuals fall short, in the minister's view?

[John Knubley]

I want to make it clear that, because I had delegated authority for this, I had no knowledge of the names of people involved in the process throughout.

In terms of a second round of reaching out to applicants, let me put it this way: It wasn't the first time, in an appointment process, that we had done a second round because there was, I presume, a consideration that the first set of names were not sufficient for the purpose of the minister making an appointment.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

To elaborate on that, then, can you speak to the department's recommendations to the minister with regard to the chairperson selection? In this process, did the department provide suggestions to the minister?

[John Knubley]

My understanding is that the department does not prepare notes on appointments. The appointment recommendation comes from PCO and the PCO-led person. In this case—again, I'm working on memory of five and a half years—I do not recall any memo coming from the department about this appointment.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I believe that, in your opening statement, you mentioned that you did have conversations with Ms. Verschuren from time to time, often during the onboarding process, and then late in June, just before retiring. In any of these discussions, did any of her conflicts of interest come up in conversation?

[John Knubley]

Yes. I want to clarify that I had only one conversation with her in terms of this appointment. It was, I believe, in late June and, as I said in my testimony, I was in the process of retiring. I believe, although I'm not absolutely certain, that she did raise that she was working with the Ethics Commissioner, that she was addressing this issue and that the Ethics Commissioner's office had provided guidelines and indicated to her that she could proceed with the appointment.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Just to clarify, that wasn't the only conversation you ever had with her. I think you testified that you often—

[John Knubley]

I often talked to her, particularly in the context of the CEO sector table and STIC, but I didn't talk to her about this appointment until the very end of the process.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Ms. Bradford. That is the time.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor.

Mr. Knubley, the next speaker is a Bloc Québécois member, and she's going to speak in French.

You said you might change your headset. I think you have on the set that's working perfectly well, but I just want to flag that for you.

[John Knubley]

I can hear you, but it's very faint.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Well, let's begin with Madame Sinclair-Desgagné.

She has six minutes.

We may run into some technical difficulties, but let's begin.