Evidence of meeting #152 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.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Ms. Verschuren, subsection 12(2) of the act is pretty clear. I just read it to you. What part of that did you not understand? I asked....
Conservative
November 20th, 2024 / 6:35 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I said that subsection 12(2) of the act is clear. I read it to you. What part of it did you not understand when $10.4 million was funnelled into Andrée-Lise Méthot's companies while you were the chair and sat on the board?
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
You can talk about the process, but you don't seem to have bothered to have acquainted yourself with a very fundamental component of the act.
As an Individual
I certainly recognize.... As chair, I felt that I was following all the policies and procedures around conflicts of interest associated with SDTC.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Policies and procedures.... Ed Vandenberg, who was providing you counsel, was also being remunerated while he served as a member of the SDTC council. While you were the chair, he was voting to appoint five members to the board that you were the chair of...of an improperly constituted council.
Did you ask any questions about that?
As an Individual
Mr. Vandenberg provided legal advice and provided service to the SDTC board and to management, and—
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
He was making unlawful appointments to the board while you were the chair, and you just didn't care. Did you just turn a blind eye to that, too?
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
It's conflicts of interest. It's unlawful appointments. It's self-dealing akin to insider trading. On and on it goes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Cooper, that is your time.
I'm going to turn now to Mr. Erskine-Smith.
You have the floor for five minutes, please, sir.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Thanks very much.
I don't know about anyone else, but I just heard a tantrum from a colleague who said, “I called it insider trading but I was wrong, so I'm now going to call it something else, but it's akin to insider trading.”
Let's get to the actual point of this, Ms. Verschuren. You've been found to be subject to an ethics violation in relation to a COVID blanket approval in relation to NRStor, and you've been found to be subject to an ethics violation in relation to the abstention rather than a recusal with respect to the Verschuren Centre's dealings where there was no financial interest in play.
Did you buy shares? Did you invest in SDTC companies within three days of a public announcement?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Okay, but surely Mr. Cooper must be onto something, and it's not just a fishing expedition. Surely we take this thing more seriously than that.
Is there any evidence available to you or to anyone on the board of SDTC where this did take place, to your knowledge?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I must have missed it, because I know Mr. Cooper wouldn't just ask questions and accuse you of criminal conduct and accuse the board of self-dealing without some evidence, so I must have missed it. I apologize for that.
What evidence did Mr. Cooper present to you today to suggest that you or anyone on the board actually engaged in self-dealing?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
Mr. Cooper didn't provide any evidence. Is that correct? He's accused you of criminal conduct. Did he provide you any evidence of it?
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
That seems surprising. I can't imagine a parliamentarian would conduct themselves like that.
My last question is in relation to your relationships with other members of the board. I should have mentioned one last fishing expedition that I've seen. It hasn't come up today in entirely the same way, but I have seen it come up. There's this idea that there's sort of a quid pro quo: You approve mine, and I'll approve yours.
On the board, who compensated you for approving projects that they had a financial stake in but where they properly recused themselves?
As an Individual
This was something that I took very seriously. I didn't talk to any board members about any of their projects. The Ethics Commissioner did not find any evidence of that as well. That was something that I really respected, and I just didn't talk about projects at that level.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
The Ethic Commissioner found answers to questions when he last attended our committee. He said the following:
It was clear to me that this was a fund that was—let's be kind—sloppily organized and operated, but there was nothing illegal from the evidence that I was presented with such that I would have said, “Hey, I should stop right now and refer it to the RCMP.”
Would you agree that there was sloppy record-keeping in relation to conflicts of interest? Would you say that there was mismanagement of record-keeping and conflicts of interest?
Would you think that's a fair assessment?
As an Individual
One thing I did before I left was really try to develop a better standard in terms of conflict of interest reporting in terms of perceived conflicts, existing conflicts and potential conflicts.
That needed to be improved. There's no question about that. It has been improved.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
I maybe didn't get a clear answer to my question previously. Maybe I didn't ask it in as blunt a way as I could have.
You have served in many capacities for different prime ministers of different political stripes. You've said in one of your previous answers that it's not about particular parties. It's about service to the country. I think it's a good thing that you resigned in the wake of an Ethics Commissioner's report. You said that you were going to take accountability for this. I think that's an appropriate course of action.
Why in the world would someone like yourself ever serve on a board under a Pierre Poilievre government that is so engaged in character assassination?
Why in the world would any serious person want to contribute their time when these folks just deal in absolute, outright character assassination, absent any evidence?