The Guit� tapes

The transcript of Chuck Guité's testimony to the Public Accounts committee -- the one from two years ago, confidential until now -- has been released. I've posted the complete text here. On even a cursory skim, two things stand out. 1) He was in close and constant contact with Alfonso Gagliano, and if he declined to discuss what they talked about, it isn't because Alfonso had nothing to say. The relevant passages:

Guité [from his opening statement]: ... I will decline today to answer any question that relate to discussions that I may have had with ministers. It will require ministerial authorization for me to disclose any discussions I've had with ministers prior to answer any questions that will deal with discussions with ministers... Mr. Philip Mayfield (Cariboo-Chilcotin, Canadian Alliance): I'm wondering who was the liaison between you and the minister's office and the Prime Minister's Office to keep track of this whole program as it was going on. Can you tell us that, please, sir? Mr. Charles Guité: No, I'll just make the following statement and I'll quote Mr. Greg Thompson at a previous meeting of June 6. [There follows a wonderfully self-serving quote to the effect that the program's sole aim was to save Canada.] My role was to deliver a program based on existing government policies -- Mr. Philip Mayfield: My question is: who is involved with you in making the decisions about perhaps slightly bending the rules, about coordinating it, which to accept and which to reject? Mr. Charles Guité: That was my decision. Mr. Philip Mayfield: You had no consultation with your deputy minister, with your minister, with other officials from the PMO? Mr. Charles Guité: Based on my initial comment, I decline to go any further on that question.

Then a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over whether Mayfield could at least ask who he talked to, even if he would not tell him what was said. At length...

Mr. Philip Mayfield: ... I simply want to know who was the liaison? Who was that person? Mr. Charles Guité: What I can clearly tell you is that I met on a regular basis with the minister. Mr. Philip Mayfield: But there was a liaison beyond that, was there not? Mr. Charles Guité: -- and I met regularly with my deputy minister. Okay? What I discussed with the minister I'm not about to say it in this meeting. Mr. Philip Mayfield: I haven't asked you that, sir.

Much later, Val Meredith returns to the point:

Ms. Val Meredith (South Surrey-White Rock-Langley, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to follow up on something that was said earlier. You mentioned that you met on a regular basis with the minister, and the deputy minister. When you said regular basis, what did you mean by that? Mr. Charles Guité: Sometimes, once a week. Sometimes, twice a week. Sometimes, three times a week. Ms. Val Meredith: So, very regularly, then? Mr. Charles Guité: Yes.

This accords with testimony from Guité's subordinate, Huguette Tremblay. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a) Alfsonso Gagliano lied to the committee, and b) Dennis Mills is ingesting some sort of hallucinogenic. 2) The program, including the directive liberating Guité from any requirement to conform with established rules of accounting and procurement, came from the very top. Guité:

During the referendum of 1995 my office was requested by the Federal-Provincial Relations Office [part of the Privy Council Office, the civil service nexus with the Prime Minister's Office] to hold a competition -- I have to be careful here the term I use -- and to follow a bit of the guidelines that exist in the rules, but I may have to, for a better term, bend them a little bit, because, as you all can understand, we were basically at war trying to save the country. We, and FPRO, invited approximately 10 firms, which is documented, there's a scope of work, to present to us, as a committee, what they could do to help us win the referendum in Quebec -- which they did. Based on that, we retained five firms. Those five firms were issued contracts and, in fact, helped us to win the referendum.

So we were at war. But why did that require paying twice for work that was not even done once?