Canada-China Relations Committee on Dec. 11th, 2023

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Wait a minute. In their own internal report they wanted you to participate in, they wouldn't give you access to any documents as part of that investigation?

[Bob Pickard]

They refused. I wanted access to the documents so I could create a timeline or provide examples, and I was completely locked out and told it was not going to happen.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you very much—

[Bob Pickard]

This was done by the Brazilian legal counsel at the bank, Alberto Ninio—at whose home I was supposed to have dinner the weekend I left the bank, actually. I didn't show up for dinner, so he wrote the report saying I didn't show up at meetings.

[Kyle Seeback, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair. Those are my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Seeback.

Now for our final portion of this round, we'll go to Madame Lalonde.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for coming in front of us, Mr. Pickard.

I want to take you back on this a little bit more if you could share some thoughts. As we mentioned, the review of Canada's participation in the AIIB has been tasked to the Department of Finance.

I would like you to maybe help us out a little further to explain your interaction with the department as part of the review process, and also to give us your view on the importance of this review being led by non-partisan professional public servants.

[Bob Pickard]

I don't know the people, in a three-dimensional or deep way, who are conducting this review; we had a single meeting. While I've been asked to provide information and am always welcome to do so—there's always been a polite acknowledgement, “Thank you, Mr. Pickard, for sending this document; feel free to send any further documents”—there haven't been any follow-up questions. I would say there's been a limited degree of intellectual curiosity in finding out all of the details here. I would have thought, given the sensational nature of some of the allegations, that there might have been more questioning.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you.

I guess that's a perfect segue. At any point in your tenure at the AIIB did you push for any internal reform to address some of the governance issues you have raised since your departure? Did you have any success in these efforts?

[Bob Pickard]

Well, on one particular issue, I was certainly a catalyst for urging the bank to take an engaged civil society more deeply, and also to address what is really a glaring issue of gender at the bank. On those two issues, while it wasn't really my remit to tell the bank president or my executive colleagues what to do, I wasn't tasked with the power of recommending a solution. In my department, we were catalysts for taking these functions more seriously, and we advocated.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

My understanding is that your department and you advocated, but you didn't push for any internal changes. Am I correct? I'm just trying to better understand this.

[Bob Pickard]

The ombudsman of the bank was supposed to publish a report, for example, having looked into the situation in my department. Twelve of the department members backed me up. Four, including the one Communist Party member, were opposed. We never heard anything back from that. I left so quickly after it that I never had a chance to call for improvement in the ombudsman's office.

I would say that, if I were calling for improvements, it would be in the human resources function, which operates more like a kind of secret police inside the bank. I would call for improvement in the IT department, which, rather than enable communication, which is my job, acted more like a security system that led to well-known, infamous surveillance inside the bank. I would call for reforms of that too.

I would also call for a reform of the system of non-resident board members. If there were a resident board at this bank, where people in Beijing, like in other MDBs, would see what was going on, then perhaps things might have been different.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much.

Is there anything further you'd like to share in front of this committee? I think we have about a minute left.

[Bob Pickard]

First of all, I want to thank everybody for listening to me. It's a very emotionally charged experience. I had to lay everything on the line for this. It's been kind of intense for me to talk about this, so thank you for listening.

If you have any follow-up questions, let me know. If you would like any further communication, I'm sure the committee staff can give you my particulars.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Pickard.

You know, for our colleagues here, Mr. Pickard and I share a background in communication. I dare say that a lot of communication professionals in Canada and the United States, or Europe for that matter, could take the transcript of Mr. Pickard's testimony here, strip out Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and insert the name of their company. I have a great deal of empathy for somebody who is in charge of communication for an organization that behaves in a way that you can't, very deep to your core, support.

Mr. Pickard, thank you for your testimony today. You leave with our blessings. Thank you.

[Bob Pickard]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

We'll suspend for a few minutes while we switch out panels.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Let's call the meeting back into session.

I think we may be threading the needle with some votes coming up, so we'll just see what happens.

We're pleased to welcome, from the Department of Finance, Steven Kuhn, associate assistant deputy minister, international trade and finance branch—your business cards must be about that long—and Julie Trépanier, director general, international finance and development division.

I understand, Mr. Kuhn, that you're going to open up for us. You have five minutes to deliver some opening remarks.

[Steven Kuhn, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, International Trade and Finance Branch, Department of Finance]

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Thank you for inviting us to come and have this discussion today.

My name is Steven Kuhn, and I am the associate assistant deputy minister for the international trade and finance branch at Finance Canada. I am accompanied here today by Julie Trépanier, who is the director general for the international finance and development division within our branch.

It's one of my branch's responsibilities to provide oversight of Canada's participation in various multilateral development banks where the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance serve as governor. These include the World Bank Group, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the AIIB.

As you know, Canada formally joined the AIIB in early 2018, and the AIIB Agreement Act, an act of Canadian Parliament, defines the Minister of Finance's role as Canadian governor to the AIIB.

Governors in MDBs, multilateral development banks, including this institution, are responsible for making the highest-level decisions in the governance of these institutions. Since joining the AIIB, my branch has also been responsible for Canada's interactions with the AIIB's management, including through representation on the AIIB's board of directors. That board of directors is responsible for providing direction for the bank's general operations, such as approving overall strategies, policies and projects. In this respect, the AIIB's governance structure is largely similar to other multilateral development banks that Canada is a member of, with one caveat being that the AIIB does not have a full-time resident board of directors, as we heard in the previous testimony.

Since inception, the AIIB has had a part-time, non-resident board of directors—largely composed of senior finance officials from the largest AIIB shareholders—that meets on a regular basis, either in person or virtually. For Canada, this has meant that our representative has been a senior official from within the international trade and finance branch at the Department of Finance, based here in Ottawa.

I'll just walk you through some of the timeline of the discussions that we're having today. This representative was informed of the resignation of the AIIB director general for communications, Mr. Bob Pickard, by the AIIB's vice-president and corporate secretary late on the evening of June 13. Department of Finance officials, including Canada's then representative to the board of directors, had previously not been in contact with Mr. Pickard and had not been informed of the issue surrounding his tenure at the AIIB.

I understand that, at around the same time, Mr. Pickard informed our Canadian representative in our embassy in Beijing of his resignation and of his plans to immediately return to Canada. Early on June 14, the Department of Finance learned, through Mr. Pickard's posts on his social media accounts, of his allegations against the AIIB. Mr. Pickard made several observations about the institution, and he has had the opportunity to discuss these with this committee.

Later on that same day, the Deputy Prime Minister issued a public statement immediately halting all Government of Canada activity at the AIIB, instructing departmental officials to lead a review of the allegations raised by Mr. Pickard and of Canada's involvement at the AIIB. Since that time, the department and my branch have been working on this review. The Deputy Prime Minister announced on December 8 that the government is continuing its review of the AIIB in consultation with some of our closest international partners. While this work continues, Canada's participation at the AIIB remains suspended.

This concludes my remarks. Julie and I would be pleased to answer questions that committee members may have. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Kuhn.

We'll now go to Mr. Chong for six minutes or less.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing.

Can you tell us when the review will be complete? Second, when will the review be made public?

[Steven Kuhn]

Thank you very much for the question.

As was identified in the news release that came out on Friday, the review is.... Our participation in the bank is indefinitely suspended while the review is ongoing. I do not have a timeline for the completion of the review at this stage.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Can you tell us whether or not the review will be made public?

[Steven Kuhn]

Whether or not the review is made public or what form the review takes upon its conclusion would be a matter for the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance to decide once we have a chance to provide that.