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
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Thank you very much.
Mr. Boulerice, you will have the opportunity to come back to this point in the next round of questions.
Mr. Perkins, you have the floor for five minute, please.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I am going to follow up on the questions of my previous two colleagues from the Bloc and the NDP, but I would like to follow up on something I asked you earlier.
In the timeline of your appointment, when you sought advice from the Ethics Commissioner on your conflict of interest in assuming this position, the conflict of interest being that the board of the organization you were about to chair was already lending or granting money to your company, was that after you had accepted the position in your conversations with Minister Bains?
As an Individual
I believe it was actually done before I was appointed. I think it was a few days before.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Somewhere in that neighbourhood you applied.
I'd like to follow up on the questions. You sat on the board of the Verschuren Centre. Did you sit on the board of Sandpiper as well?
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
However, you are an investor in Sandpiper, and you sat on the board of the Verschuren Centre at the time.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That was at the time you were chairing the SDTC board. Is that correct?
As an Individual
I'm trying to remember when I became an investor in Sandpiper.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Okay. I'll come back to that.
The Verschuren Centre sought $6.8 million from SDTC, and they did that without consulting the board of the Verschuren Centre. Is that correct? When I look at the cash flow statements and the income statement of the Verschuren Centre from the time, it appears it was in desperate need of this money.
As an Individual
I declared conflicts at the board of the Verschuren Centre on anything to do with SDTC.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That wasn't my question, though.
It did go through the board. When it went to the board investment committee on January 13, 2022, the minutes rejected it, as you say, for all the reasons of conflict of interest. The minutes say that SDTC would shift its efforts in discussion with other potential funding sources in hope that the diligence conducted to date can be transformed into another funding agency. That was in January.
In June, ACOA gave the Verschuren Centre $2 million, and so on. For the next couple of months, another $4.2 million was given by other government agencies. There was another $1 million in September from ACOA, and another $3.1 million from ISED, which Mr. Noseworthy acted for. Also, another $1.4 million came from DFO in May of that year.
Do you believe it was ethical to use the staff of SDTC to be the business development funding officers for the Verschuren Centre, which you sat on the board of, and use the staff of your own agency, which you chaired, to help fund government money in other ways for the other organization you established and sat on the board of?
As an Individual
Mr. Chair, the Verschuren Centre is a not-for-profit organization. Any funding goes to support the ecosystem and its companies.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That wasn't my question. You chaired an organization that used its staff to find other government money when it was conflicted. You couldn't get money out of the thing that you chaired, the green slush fund, so you used the staff to find money from other government departments, who then ended up giving the Verschuren Centre not $6.8 million but $11 million. To me, that's a total abuse of your position.
That's just for MP Erskine-Smith's information. He doesn't seem to think that's a problem.
The Verschuren Centre then invested—
Conservative
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
That was absolutely uncalled for, taking shots at colleagues—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
By the standards of this committee, that's a pretty light poke.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mr. Erskine-Smith, your poke at a Conservative member was quite a lot harder than that, but I'll hear your point of order.
Go ahead, please.
Liberal
Nathaniel Erskine-Smith Liberal Beaches—East York, ON
It actually was not, Chair. He's suggesting that I don't care about an ethics violation when I have clearly stated multiple times that I do.
Conservative