43rd PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates EVIDENCE NUMBER 022 Wednesday, March 24, 2021 Chair: Mr. Robert Kitchen 1 Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates Wednesday, March 24, 2021 ● (1650) Before beginning, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge [English] that I am meeting you from the territory of many first nations, in‐ cluding the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishinabe, the Chippe‐ The Chair (Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, wa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples. CPC)): I call this meeting to order. Welcome, everybody, and thank you very much for coming this With me today are the deputy minister of PSPC, Bill Matthews; afternoon to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Stand‐ associate deputy minister Michael Vandergrift; and assistant deputy ing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. ministers Arianne Reza and Lorenzo Ieraci. The committee is meeting today from 4:49 to 6:49. We will hear Today I am pleased to discuss PSPC's supplementary estimates from the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada as (C) for the fiscal year 2020-21. First, allow me to address my de‐ part of the committee's study on the subject matter of supplemen‐ partment's 2019-20 departmental results report. tary estimates (C), 2020-21. I would like to take this opportunity to remind all participants in [Translation] this meeting that screenshots or taking photos of your screen are not permitted. Among our many accomplishments for that fiscal year, we launched two Coast Guard vessels and delivered a third to the To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules Navy. As well, the open and transparent competition to replace to follow. Canada's fighter fleet marked an important milestone in 2019 with the release of the formal request for proposal to pre‑qualified sup‐ Interpretation in this video conference will work very much as in pliers. a regular committee meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. [English] Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon We also advanced efforts to ensure that public servants are paid to activate your mike. When you are not speaking, your mike accurately and on time, and significant progress has now been should be on mute. made to reduce the backlog of pay transactions as a result of the Phoenix pay system. To raise a point of order during the meeting, committee members should ensure that their microphone is unmuted and say “point of PSPC's work for the year also supported the government's cli‐ order” to get the chair's attention. mate action and sustainability priorities by reducing our operational In order to ensure social distancing in the committee room, if you greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 60% through energy efficien‐ need to speak privately with the clerk or analyst during the meeting, cies in our real property portfolio. please email them at the committee email address. Mr. Chair, these are only a handful of our accomplishments. For those people who are participating in the committee room, please note that masks are required unless seated and when physical Of course, when the pandemic landed on Canada's shores in ear‐ distancing is not possible. ly 2020, my department responded quickly to procure services, sup‐ plies and equipment to protect the health and safety of Canadians. I want to thank the minister for being here today and for offering to be here for 90 minutes. It's greatly appreciated. Let me move to a vaccine update. As this committee well knows, At this point in time, I invite Minister Anand to make her open‐ this past year was truly like no other. The loss of precious lives, the ing statement. depths of trauma experienced by Canadians and the damage to the Hon. Anita Anand (Minister of Public Services and Procure‐ economy wrought by COVID-19 continue to reverberate. With an ment): Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. ever-increasing supply of vaccines now flowing into this country, and more and more Canadians rolling up their sleeves, we are final‐ Good afternoon, committee members and Mr. Chair. ly beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. 2 OGGO-22 March 24, 2021 My department has pursued a diversified approach to vaccine fronts, while continuing to procure vital supplies and services that procurement, and that approach is paying off. Canada is now set to are keeping Canadians safe in this time of crisis. receive 36.5 million doses before Canada Day, and we are continu‐ ing to work with vaccine suppliers every day to move up deliveries [Translation] of doses. By the end of September, all those who are eligible in Canada Thank you very much. will have access to a vaccine. However, we know that our extraor‐ dinary procurement activities will need to continue. There is more [English] work to be done. Meegwetch. I shall move to supplementary estimates (C). [Translation] The Chair: Thank you, Minister, for your opening comments. To that end, the majority of funding we are requesting in our sup‐ We will now go to our first round of questions. plementary estimates is meant to continue supporting Canada's pan‐ demic response. Namely, PSPC is requesting to convert $380 mil‐ Mr. Paul-Hus, you have six minutes. lion in unused statutory funding into voted appropriation. This will allow us to continue procuring critical goods and services on behalf of the Public Health Agency of Canada and to help with Canada's [Translation] ongoing response and recovery efforts. Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, ● (1655) CPC): Thank you, Mr. Chair. [English] Good evening, Madam Minister. It's been a long time since we've The PSPC quickly mobilized a significant portion of its work‐ seen you at a committee meeting. Welcome. force to focus on COVID. This has left a large gap in the day-to- day operations of the department, which have not slowed during the pandemic. Therefore, we are also seeking $8.2 million to help You may have guessed that I'm going to start by asking you PSPC handle other critical procurements to support the ongoing op‐ about vaccines. I would like to understand why we learned from the erations of government. New York Times that the European Union has signed an exemption agreement with 92 countries, but not with Canada. Have you nego‐ Beyond pandemic-related activities, we are seeking $6.1 million tiated to have an exemption so that we are not constantly afraid of for additional resources to correct data errors in the federal pension not having our vaccines? system that were transmitted by the Phoenix pay system. While the number of incoming data errors has declined recently, a backlog of [English] files has accumulated that requires attention. Hon. Anita Anand: I want to indicate that while it has been a In addition, we are seeking $9.2 million for accommodations while since I've been to the committee, I have had four appearances costs for pension administration employees, and we are requesting at OGGO, and eight appearances across five committees, with 9.5 a transfer of $1.6 million to Shared Services Canada as part of an hours of testimony in total. I am very interested in being collabora‐ effort to consolidate IT services and decommission data centres. tive and transparent with Parliament, and working with Parliament. This will save considerable costs in providing data, email and tele‐ com services for government operations. In terms of your question relating to the EU, we have managed, [Translation] despite the EU's transparency mechanisms, to continue to get our vaccines out of Europe, because of our diplomatic efforts. Mr. Chair, PSPC will continue to lead on many other critical ini‐ tiatives—from maintaining federal buildings, to defence procure‐ ment and supporting the national shipbuilding strategy. That strate‐ In addition, we are seeing a record number of vaccines coming to gy is revitalizing our marine sector and creating jobs for Canadians Canada, two million this week alone, nine and a half million by the across the country. end of March, 36.5 million prior to the end of June, and 118 million prior to the end of September. Our diplomatic efforts are working. I want this committee to know that we are applying recommen‐ dations from the Auditor General's recent report on the national [Translation] shipbuilding strategy, and we are working with our partners to closely manage shipbuilding progress. Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus: In fact, Madam Minister, you are telling [English] us that, in terms of contracts, Canada is poorly organized and must engage in diplomacy. This is costing us billions of dollars, because These are just a few examples of our department's wide-ranging we are talking about money, billions, today. So if we fail on the work to support Canadians. The funding requested today will allow diplomatic front, we may not have vaccines in three weeks. At us to continue to do our important work for Canadians on many some point, it won't work. March 24, 2021 OGGO-22 3 As for export permits, we know that export permits to Canada [English] will be in order for the next two weeks, but we don't know about what comes afterwards. The export permits could be denied and we Hon. Anita Anand: My duty is to ensure we are undertaking the would be left without vaccines. contracting process in a responsible way.