Public Accounts Committee on June 9th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ms. Crombie.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

We discussed this quite thoroughly at steering committee today. One of the key reasons we need to question the deputy minister or his designate is that the process that was outlined by both the Auditor General and this committee, our predecessors, has not been followed. That's the specific reason we want them here, to address those issues.

They have a tendering process that does not follow the procedure that had been put in place. There's a significant amount of money. It encompasses 22,000 files. They've limited the number of days that the applicants have to respond to the RFP to 52. It is not nearly enough time; we've heard that from many other potential bidders who have been excluded as a result of the process. There is no ramp-up period; normally, in excess of three months is permitted.

None of that has been given consideration in this RFP, which they had two years to get right. For those reasons, we need to have them here and question them on this process.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Madam Faille.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Ms. Crombie just summed up what I was about to say.

For this kind of initiative, the studies and the comments made by the Auditor General in 2006 at the time of the review required a fair number of employees. The time available to the beneficiary of this proposal—a proposal that will be valid until June 19, I believe—to set up his organization is unreasonable.

In my opinion, we need to make some clarifications regarding Mr. Guimont. It would be irresponsible for us, as members of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and also as guardians of public funds, to fail to question the people at Public Works and Government Services Canada. Moreover, this expires on June 19. I believe that this issue is both urgent and relevant.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Madam Crombie mentioned that she's concerned that perhaps the recommendations of the public accounts committee were not being followed. Again, I would like to refer to the letter from Mr. Guimont, dated June 3, which states, on the first page, in the second paragraph: Great care has been taken to ensure that the lessons learned from the relevant Auditor General and Standing Committee on Public Accounts observations and recommendations have been incorporated into the new Integrated Relocation Program procurement approach and documentation.

Secondly, what I would suggest is that if my colleagues in the opposition have questions that they feel need to be answered, they should talk to their colleagues who sit on the government operations committee and have the government operations committee call somebody in to answer those questions. That is the right location for this witness to go, not this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay, I'm prepared to move the minutes, as amended.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I so move.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

So moved by Mr. Christopherson.

All in favour of the minutes as amended--

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

One moment, Chair.

I have an issue with regard to vote 35, where we're calling the Comptroller General before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Go ahead, Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Again, we have had significant correspondence from the Comptroller General, from the Treasury Board, explaining their position. I don't see how any further information will come out of the Comptroller General's coming here. He's already written us, I believe, at least two letters. We got a letter from the president of the Treasury Board, as well.

I think we should look into those letters, rather than jumping to calling him before the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Ms. Crombie.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I think one of the key reasons we'd like to have Mr. Monette here is because of the lack of clarity of those letters. He actually contradicts himself in certain cases. I think even the chair has questions about the letters.

I think we want to have the ability to ask him directly: is the money being drawn down, is there an accounting? He does not answer those questions in the letters, in the exchange with our chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Mr. Saxton.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I'm familiar with the letters. I don't see any contradiction. I invite my colleague to explain this contradiction that she refers to.

He has answered the questions he was asked. If we have different questions, then we have to send him a different letter with different questions. But he's been very clear in his responses.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'm not going to go over where the contradiction is, because I know you've read the letters. You've seen the contradiction--

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

I haven't seen any.

[Bonnie Crombie, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

—on whether programs or projects are funded, etc.

In addition to that, there is not clarity here. If there were, there wouldn't be need for three or four exchanges with our chairman; there wouldn't have been the necessity for him to respond on behalf of the minister.

I don't see what the issue is over bringing him here and asking him directly to respond with some clarity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

If I may just comment, I'm not going to get into the detail, but it is confusing. The motion talks about expenditures. Mr. Monette says there are no expenditures. He goes on and explains that, but I'm a little confused as to.... If no money's been spent, then his answer is quite simple: there's no money spent.

What bothers me worse than that, though, is the issue that the motion talks about a weekly report. Mr. Monette gave us one report, but he never came back with any other report, so he could very well be in violation of a motion of an order of Parliament, which I find a little disconcerting. I find confusion, and I'm concerned as to why he's not given us the report.

And he may be quite right; there may be no expenditures from vote 35, but again, it's not totally clear in his correspondence.

Mr. Saxton and then Mr. Shipley.

[Andrew Saxton, Conservative, North Vancouver, BC]

Mr. Chair, there may be confusion over this matter, but my take is that the confusion stems from the motion itself, not from the letters that are responding to our requests. Clearly, there is a mistake that expenditures do not come out of vote 35, so this confusion stems from the motion, not from the letters that were sent to us, as Ms. Crombie suggests.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

You may be right. That may be right.

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Just following up on that, I would need to have somebody show me where the contradictions are in the letter, because there aren't any that I see. I would wait to see that.

To follow through, vote 35 does not approve expenditures. The frustration is clear. That's why we didn't support it. They are not allocated to projects. They're allocated to programs.

It's a mechanism.... We listen to that every day while they hold discussion around the $3 billion. It was bridge funding that goes to programs.

When I read the letters, clearly one was sent to Mr. Murphy back on June 4 from Mr. Toews. The quarterly report was tabled in March. The second report will be tabled this month, which is June. I'm wondering why....

Clearly it's a little bit like the one on public works. We seem to be intervening prior to the end of something, thinking that we're going to try to find something without knowing if there's anything there, but that we'd better go fishing for it anyway.

I'm new on the committee this term, but every time that I'm here, we're talking about reports or somebody has actually done an analysis, perhaps the Auditor General. That seems to be what our main focus has been. It would seem to me that's where we're off the rails. That's why we couldn't support the motion in the first place. There will be quarterly reports that come through the supplementaries, and then they'll come to public accounts.

To my mind, vote 35 doesn't spend the dollars, it allocates them. I'll leave it at that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Go ahead, Mr. Young.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

I agree. Allocations for programs are not spending money, so if we ask the assistant comptroller general to come here, we're going to get the same answer, perhaps in better detail. We're going to get an answer that we have here in writing, but we're going to get it verbally. It will take a lot of the Comptroller General's time and the committee's time as well, so there's a fundamental problem with the actual motion.

Why don't we plan to review the motion at another time, and go back and get what we want? At that point I suspect we're going to find out that what Ms. Ratansi wants has been reported to Parliament. It may be as early as next week, or perhaps the week after, but it will be in a quarterly report anyway.