Government Operations Committee on Sept. 29th, 2011

[Janet Barrington]

I don't have that readily available. I do know that the value is quite low. Out of the $20 billion, the value of the under-$25,000 contracts is quite low.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

I would suspect so.

[Janet Barrington]

I'm not sure I have the number handy.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

It's 90% of the contracts—

[Janet Barrington]

The number of contracts.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

—but a very small percentage of the $20 billion figure. If you could get us a guesstimate and submit it to the committee, we'd be interested.

[Frank Brunetta]

Intuitively, Mr. Chairman, I would say that this is the case. The volume in the numbers is under 25; the materiality in the dollar would be in that 10%. That's where you have your military procurements and what have you. But we'll confirm that and get back to you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Thank you.

Because we have a vacancy today, we'll go right to the next Conservative questioner, Scott Armstrong.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Brunetta, for your presentation today.

I have several questions. Is there any particular government department--you just mentioned Defence--that you've had a particular interest in reviewing or had a particular number of complaints about?

[Frank Brunetta]

That's a good question, Mr. Armstrong. It's a question that I asked the office. We have a case management system that allows us to log the number of complaints coming in and to collect other information. One of the things I wanted to know was whether there was a particular department that comes up more than others. Not surprisingly, it's Public Works, but it's not because they're a problematic department. This is the procurement arm of the government, and it only makes sense that most of the issues have to do with Public Works. After that, the data are really scattered. There isn't any particular department that jumps out.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

So we're not looking at any particular black holes or one department that's not doing very well.

[Frank Brunetta]

No.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

The complaints are coming in and are pretty much spread out equally.

[Frank Brunetta]

That's exactly the line of questioning I wanted to follow. I wanted to know whether there was a particular area in government that represented most of the calls. That would have given me evidence to do a practice review or follow something up with that department, but that line of questioning didn't materialize in anything significant.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Good. Next week this committee is going to begin a study on the Office of Small and Medium Enterprises and a particular program in that office. How effectively do you believe this office facilitates and supports small and medium enterprises to get business with the federal government?

[Frank Brunetta]

I'm familiar with the OSME office, and I can't say that I can give you an answer on how well they do things. What I will tell you is that based on the calls we're receiving, there's a definite need for this type of office. As I mentioned earlier, new entrants into government business are finding it very difficult. A lot of the calls that we get are basic questions like how to get on MERX. A vast majority of those are forwarded to the OSME office.That's their role.

So how effective they are, I can't say. Is there a need for an office of that nature? Absolutely.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Are you familiar with a Canadian innovation and commercialization program?

[Frank Brunetta]

Unfortunately, I'm not, no.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Okay, I'm going to move on then.

Could you give some examples of some of the best practices you've seen in procurement in the public service?

[Frank Brunetta]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, this is actually one of the areas that our office tries to promote. While we're quite diligent in trying to uncover issues, where there are issues, and try to correct them, the other aspect of what we do is to identify best practices and try to disseminate those best practices in hopes that other government departments pick up on them.

There are three main areas I'd like to talk about. The first one is one I mentioned in the annual report. We're finding that in some departments program managers are involving the procurement community at the front end of the decision-making process. So when there's a decision to launch a new program or build a particular building, having the procurement folks at the table is very important. They need to understand the rationale for the requirements. They need to understand how things are working.

What we found on the other end of the spectrum--we'd been told this by procurement officials, and this is the poor practice--is that they're called in when the decisions are made and they're having to scramble. That's when we know, and we've seen, the corners get cut, because the program manager is under extreme pressure to deliver, the person hasn't accommodated the time that is required to do procurement, and mistakes wind up being made.

So I believe one of the best practices that we've seen is to involve the procurement officials at the front end of the program development process.

The second area is a due diligence initiative. The departments we go into where procurement is working fairly well have robust functioning procurement review committees. So any of the procurement that the department is undertaking in any given month--and most of these committees meet monthly, if not quarterly--are reviewed by the procurement committee. This is something my predecessor mentioned in a couple of reports, and it's something that I believe is a very good practice.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Scott, that's the end of your time.

Perhaps you could finish your answer in the context of another question.

[Frank Brunetta]

Sure. Thank you.

[The Chair, NDP, Pat Martin]

Mathieu Ravignat, five minutes.

[Mathieu Ravignat, NDP, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming, and obviously for your important work.

Just to introduce myself to the rest of my colleagues, I am now the opposition critic for Public Works and Government Services, so I'm here in that function.

I'll give you a little bit of context. You may be aware, and no doubt you are, that the Americans have put forward a bill that includes a Buy American provision. Surrounding that, I'll be asking you questions about your role.

As you know, within NAFTA there are a number of exemptions for purchases of goods. These include the RCMP, National Defence, and a number of other things: R and D, health, social services, but also contracts below $28,000. But between April 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, there were 466 contracts under the NAFTA threshold that were awarded to vendors in the United States. For example, Public Works and Government Services Canada had a contract to a Missouri firm for industrial sewing machines at Corrections Canada.

My first question is this. Do you advise the government departments on the use of Canadian suppliers?

[Frank Brunetta]

Thank you for the question.

No, my mandate does not involve advising government on any aspect of procurement.