Canada’s consul general in New York, Tom Clark, will be able to attend a committee probing the decision to buy a $9-million condo in Manhattan as early as September, Global Affairs Canada told the chair of the Government Operations and Estimates committee on Tuesday.
Clark has said that he would be happy to attend the committee on either Sept. 4 or Sept. 12, committee chair and Conservative MP Kelly McCauley said.
“Mr. Clark’s staff has confirmed that he would be pleased to make himself available to appear before the committee (on) Sept. 4th or Sept. 12th,” McCauley said as he read a statement from Global Affairs Canada at the start of proceedings of a committee meeting on Tuesday.
Senior public servants have been called to the House of Commons committee to explain the government’s decision to buy a $9-million condo for the consul general in New York. The government is selling its old Manhattan residence, which it has listed for $13 million, a move that Global Affairs says will actually save the government money.
On Tuesday, GAC confirmed to Global News that Clark would not be attending the meeting on Tuesday. While reading out the GAC statement, McCauley said Clark is on leave until Sept. 3.
“Consul General Clark is unavailable on the date initially proposed,” GAC said in a separate statement given to Global News.
However, GAC added that Clark “has indicated he is happy to attend, and work is underway with the committee to find an alternate date.”
After Clark’s initial unavailability, Conservative MP Michael Barrett said Conservatives would seek to formally summon Clark to the meeting.
“As an employee of the government of Canada, taxpayers are paying his wages. He must appear when he’s called for parliamentary committee. It’s extraordinary that he said he was going to come and now is refusing. This is why Conservatives will issue a formal summons for Mr. Clark to appear,” Barrett told Global News in an interview on Monday.
Amelie Bouchard, the acting chief appraiser of Canada, has said she was the most senior official in the federal procurement department to sign off on the purchase but noted her role is to appraise a given property.
Samantha Tattersall, a senior Treasury Board official, said her department did not need to review the purchase because it was under $10 million. However, she said Treasury Board policies would govern how Global Affairs made its decision.
“What I think this committee would want to hear from Global Affairs about is: did they undertake a full life-cycle cost analysis of the different options?” she said.
“Did they look at keeping (the old residence) and making the upgrades? Did they look at what the full cost would be of acquiring something new, either through a purchase or through a lease? And what was the result of that analysis?”
The $10-million transaction limit was increased from $4 million in 2022 after a review of the average purchase price of foreign residences, officials said.
According to documents filed with the committee last week, it’s likely that Canada will actually make a profit on the sale of its former Manhattan residence.
That Park Avenue apartment has been listed for sale at $13 million.
Global Affairs Canada previously said the unit was purchased in 1961 and last renovated in 1982 and needed significant upgrades.
It was not in compliance with accessibility legislation, there was a lack of separation between family and work space, and the co-operative board had imposed restrictions on events that could be held on site, the department said.
Concerns about the Park Avenue apartment were first raised in 2014.
Seven years later, Global Affairs approved $1.8-million worth of renovations, but the project was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
More issues were discovered recently, and documents submitted to the committee show the renovation project cost had risen to $2.6 million and was not expected to solve some fundamental issues with the apartment.
The government worked with a local broker on the purchase, viewing 21 residences that ranged in price between $8 million and $21 million.
It settled on a luxury condo in Steinway Tower, steps from Central Park in the area known as Billionaires’ Row. The official residence will be used by Clark, a former journalist, who was appointed consul general in February 2023.
— with files from Global News’s Bryan Mullan and The Canadian Press