Government Operations Committee on March 6th, 2023

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Minister, $33 million a year is not urgency. This is the leading cause of death in my province—more than homicide, motor vehicle accidents and death by suicide. You're the public safety minister. You ignored your own expert task force on substance use that made recommendations to your government. I put it forward in a bill, and you voted against it. You voted against your own expert task force.

There is no detox in my community. There's no treatment centre in my community. I was at the Parksville recovery centre. They're doing bake sales to keep their doors open.

These two young boys died. I got a message from their counsellor, and she said that she was so sad and frustrated. They barely had a fighting chance, but there were moments that he did fight, and he certainly loved.... When will your government fight to be there when people are ready? When will you show the love and compassion that's needed in this crisis? You are the public safety minister.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

We're going to fight every single day by taking the appropriate evidence-based and compassionate approach to supporting everyone who suffers from substance issues.

Mr. Johns, don't doubt it for a moment. I understand your pleas, and we will work with you. We'll work with your community, we'll work with the advocates in this space, and we'll work with the Government of British Columbia. We'll work with all of our provincial and territorial partners to—

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

You voted against MP Brendan Hanley. He was the former chief medical officer of health of the Yukon who supported my bill. You voted against your own expert.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

We're doing, nonetheless, the work with the Province of British Columbia to push forward with a public health care evidence-based approach to tackle this crisis around the opioid substance abuse challenges that are felt by you, your community and right across the country. That is the commitment and the track record of this government.

Yes, it's hard. Yes, it's challenging. Yes, there are real human losses and tragedies that go along with that, but we will do this work together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

Mr. Paul-Hus, welcome back again.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Minister, Mr. Gallivan and Ms. O'Gorman.

I'd like to come back to the famous contracts.

Minister, in your opening remarks you referred to the four initial contracts. Of these, three have been completed and one has been terminated before work has begun.

The committee made an access to information request about the contracts, but, as you can see, the documents we received were redacted. In other words, we have no access to any information about the contracts awarded to McKinsey.

From 2016 onwards, there was an explosion in the number of contracts awarded to McKinsey, which everyone found very strange. You said that the first contract, worth $1.9 million, was entered into between May and October, 2016, and was regarding the Canada Border Services Agency's Assessment and Revenue Management project. Data was sought from McKinsey on how to proceed with billing.

Why don't the documents the committee receives contain this information? Is it because the information involves national security?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

I would like to make a clarification: not all the information was redacted. The redaction process complied with the Privacy Act.

Ms. O'Gorman can perhaps explain the process that was put in place to—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I understand, but, what you're telling me is that the contractual agreement with the Government of Canada means that McKinsey has a say in the non-disclosure. Because the government cannot disclose the information in the contracts, the content of the contracts is not available.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That is exactly the process we went through, but Ms. O'Gorman can speak to that in more detail.

We received a letter last night, and we are reviewing the redaction, to confirm that everything is as it should be.

Ms. O'Gorman—

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Who is this letter from? Is it from the committee?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

It is from the committee, yes.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

All right. This is a letter in which you are asked to review redaction procedures.

As I understand it, basically the company decides what information it wants to hide. Is it the government or the company that decides what information to redact?

[Erin O'Gorman]

We received the letter last night, and we are taking action.

As far as the redaction is concerned, we have complied with the act.

We redacted, for example, the bid of the unsuccessful bidder in one case—the per diem rates and other information that would be classified as commercial confidential.

We also disclosed the names of individuals related to the project. As for other individuals who worked for the company, but were not involved in the project, their names have not been released publicly. We have checked all names, and redacted those of individuals who were not part of our project.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I see.

It's not just names that have been redacted; whole paragraphs have been blacked out.

I would now like to talk about the fourth contract.

Minister, you mentioned that three contracts were completed and the fourth was terminated because the agency said it had the capacity to do the work in‑house.

What was that contract?

Why was it not possible to do the work in‑house from the start?

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

That's a good question.

The last contract started in October 2022 and ended recently. There are reasons for that, but I'll let Ted Gallivan tell you about it.

[Ted Gallivan, Executive Vice-President, Canada Border Services Agency]

I'll be brief, but it basically comes back to the point your colleague just made.

Since the project was ready to be implemented, we decided that it was best to have civil servants permanently working on this aspect, with the aim of quantifying the added value and targeting the performance standards of the system. As we need this insight on a permanent basis, we decided to break the contract and do the work in‑house.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

All right.

Minister, on November 18, I attended the meeting of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration; your colleague the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Mr. Fraser, was also present.

In fact, I asked him a question in connection with an article in the Journal de Montréal. It said that 25,804 people had been denied asylum and given deportation notices, but it was not known where they were in the country.

This morning I received the response from Ms. Fox, the Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, who was present at the November 18 meeting. There are currently 223,630 asylum claims that...

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm afraid that's your time, Mr. Paul-Hus. Can you wrap up very quickly? Perhaps they can get back to us.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I am told that there are 51,988 people who have been refused asylum. What is CBSA doing to deport them? In fact, at this time there are only 1,400 who have been deported.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

There is, in fact, a process...

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. Perhaps we can get back to the committee, because we don't have time.

Before we go over to Ms. Thompson, I just want to briefly interject.

Ms. O'Gorman and Mr. Gallivan, the request from the committee was very clearly for unredacted documents. I don't think we're looking for departments to be looking at documents to redact. Again, I would just remind you that the request from the committee was clearly for unredacted documents, and the committee does expect those.

Thanks very much.

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Eglinton—Lawrence, ON]

Mr. Chair, on that point, I just want to assure you and all of the members of this committee that that is precisely what Ms. O'Gorman was getting at, which is that we are going over that process of redacting—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

There is nothing to go over. The committee requires them unredacted. The comments of Mr. Gallivan and Ms. O'Gorman seem to indicate they were reconsidering. There is nothing to reconsider. We do require them unredacted, as the committee has requested. Thanks.

Ms. Thompson, it's over to you for five minutes, please.

[Joanne Thompson, Liberal, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister, and your two colleagues.

I would like to begin with you, Ms. O'Gorman. It's about something that you referenced in an earlier round of questions, which is the transformation of business process. I assume a tremendous amount of work is involved in digitalizing the department. Could you speak to this work, particularly the timeline of the work? Then could you relate it to the circumstances that, in that time, led to outsourcing? If not, what would lead to outsourcing? I'm really interested in a deeper dive into what the transformational business process looks like.

[Erin O'Gorman]

CBSA was created in 2003 out of different departments. In its initial years, it was focused on integrating the various functions into the one workforce. Around 2011 or 2012, it became clear that the systems and processes were quickly becoming out of date, as other countries digitized their borders or had plans to digitize their borders and digitize their revenue collection. Next to CRA, CBSA collects the most revenue on behalf of the Government of Canada. It was facing a changing landscape and also increasing travel volumes without a consequential increase in its budget and a recognition that it needed to look at its efficiencies.

It was in that context that the business cases were done, one for the revenue collection function and the other for the quite separate and different traveller experience functions. Two separate business cases were done for the CBSA, both of which are being implemented. There have been budget allocations. Additional public servants have been hired to help with the implementation of each of those processes. I'm not sure if that gets at your question, but that's the work that's been under way as a result of the contracts that McKinsey has been paid to do.