Debates of Nov. 27th, 1995

Department Of Public Works And Government Services

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Pursuant to Standing Order 76, the recorded division on the motion stands deferred.

It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Chicoutimi-the Constitution.

We now move on to consideration of group 4.

[Jean-Paul Marchand, Bloc, Québec-Est, QC]

moved:

Motion No. 8

That Bill C-52, in Clause 20, be amended: a ) by replacing line 38, on page 6, with the following:

"20. (1) Subject to any regulations that; and"; and b ) by adding after line 4, on page 7, the following:

"(2) Within the first five days of every month or, if the House of Commons is not then sitting, within the first three days next thereafter that the House is sitting, the Minister shall cause to be laid before the House copies of all contracts entered into under subsection (1) since copies of contracts entered into under subsection (1) were last laid before the House.

(3) The copies of contracts laid before the House of Commons pursuant to subsection (2) shall stand permanently referred to the committee established to consider matters relating to government operations."

Motion No. 9

That Bill C-52, in Clause 20, be amended: a ) by replacing line 38, on page 6, with the following:

"20. (1) Subject to any regulations that; and"; and b ) by adding after line 4, on page 7, the following:

"(2) Within the first five days of every month, the Minister shall cause to be sent to every member of the House of Commons a list of the contracts entered into under subsection (1) in the preceding month that relate to a corporation or a firm a ) having a place of business in the member's constitutency; or b ) providing products or services pursuant to the contract in the member's constituency.''

Mr. Speaker, this amendment to clause 20 is once again an attempt by the official opposition to provide greater transparency in the activities of the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

We certainly understand that the Department of Public Works and Government Services has an important mandate, which is to award contracts. However, we also know that there is a lot of patronage related to that process, and that is something that can be very costly. As you know, the federal government contracts out almost $10 billion worth of services every year. The committee which reviewed this bill was told at one point by Treasury Board that these contracts amounted to only $5 billion. Then we learned that it might closer to $7 billion. Now we know that, for all intents and purposes, these contracts amount to some $10 billion, and not all of them are necessarily justified.

Again, we were told by Treasury Board officials that, while the government is in favour of relying more on the contracting out process, as confirmed from year to year, particularly since the Liberals took office, and while that practice has indeed increased, Treasury Board has not set up any written assessment system to effectively show that this process was good for the government, in terms of money saved and increased efficiency.

Just recently, the committee heard some Treasury Board officials who showed us, through their studies, that the total value of non-competitive contracts was greater than that of competitive contracts. Just think. Contracts under $30,000 awarded by the government are not subject to a bidding process, nor is any assessment done by any independent agency or department.

In other words, all contracts worth less than $30,000 can be awarded to anyone, without any bidding. These are non-competi-

tive contracts and, as I said, their total value is greater than that of all the contracts which are subject to the competitive bidding process.

I think this is outrageous, because we know perfectly well that the present government has monstrous debts. It seems to me that a responsible government would want to use every means at its disposal to ensure that these contracts with agencies that do business with the government are honest and efficient.

However, there seems to be no desire to take any initiative in this respect. The motion on clause 20 is quite straightforward. Its purpose is to ensure that all contracts entered into by the government with outside firms are published. It is certainly not too much to ask the government to publish contracts, if only to inform members of contracts entered into in their ridings. This is elementary.

It is not a matter of cost either, although the government keeps saying it would be extremely costly for the Department of Public Works and Government Services to table in the House copies of contracts entered into with outside firms. It is certainly not too costly, since the Quebec government already does this.

This mechanism already exists. Clearly, if contracts awarded by the government were published, this would be one more way to monitor the system, so there would be less patronage involved in awarding these contracts. Members of Parliament and others with access to this information would be able to draw attention to the many cases of abuse that would be easy to detect.

However, the government will not budge, it continues its policy of concealment and shows no desire to be transparent. As far as we are concerned, the kind of information we want is elementary. We want to know. This is nothing out of the ordinary. We would have this information if the government had the political will to inform the general public, but we are not even asking that. We just want members of Parliament to be informed, as is the case in Quebec. The government has rejected our request. In fact, in the past two years we have filed several requests with the Minister of Public Works and Government Services for access to this information, and we were turned down many times.

In my opinion, this refusal on the part of government to make contracts entered into with outside firms public seems to be a desire to conceal information. It seems to me that it is not a desire for transparency, and the fact that waste and patronage may be at a very high level in this government perhaps explains why access to this information is being refused. Not only does this denote a denial of transparency and information, but it is also an obvious reflection of the desire, or lack of concern, on the part of the Government to try to really reduce waste and misspending when it comes to contracts with companies outside the government.

Where subcontracting is concerned, in connection with contracts of under $30,000 with no tendering process, I can personally tell you that I have met a number of people who are familiar with all the tricks used within the public service, all those readily implemented tricks that can be used to get impressive amounts out of the government, under the pretext that they are non-tendered, non-competitive contracts. Shockingly high amounts have been wasted once again by these departments.

All that we in the official opposition want is to be responsible, to set up an initiative which will ensure greater transparency by enabling us to obtain the necessary information to denounce abuses and waste. This, I feel, is elementary. These are things to which one ought to be entitled.

It seems to me that the government itself, if it were really concerned about transparency and reducing waste, would have brought in modifications to ensure that those involved were better informed. It seems to me that the government is refusing things which are self-evident.

To my eyes, this is an extremely worrisome action. We can understand why the government is not reducing its deficit. We can understand that the debt is going to continue to increase. The economists are even predicting that the debt will exceed $800 billion by the year 2000. This situation is cause for alarm.

With this, the government would have the opportunity to implement measures to limit these abuses. It could even go so far as to adopt an act, as my colleague from Portneuf has said, to protect public servants reporting waste within government, or to propose bills to protect private businesses who have dealings with the government, so that they too may report wastage, rigged contracts, abuses and so on. But the government does not do so.

In closing, I would like to express my wish that the government adopt this motion so as to guarantee greater transparency in contracts outside government, thus reducing waste in Department of Public Works and Government Services contracts.

[Dick Harris, Reform, Prince George—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to address the Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-52, particularly the motions put forward by the hon. member for Québec-Est.

I know what the hon. member is thinking in proposing these amendments. They would allow government contracts to be placed before committees and before members of Parliament. The committees would look at them and either approve or disapprove of them. Quite naturally, this is an unworkable and unrealistic concept. It simply does not work.

We must take into consideration when considering MotionNo. 8 the fact that the government enters into literally thousands of contracts over the course of a year with thousands of individuals and hundreds and hundreds of companies. To suggest that these contracts could be effectively analyzed by the government operations committee is unrealistic. Considering the sheer number of contracts in no time the committee would be simply choked with paperwork. Ultimately this would achieve nothing.

While I do not support the amendment I share the opinions of the member for Québec-Est, particularly those on non-competitive contracts. I share his concern in all contracts laid out by the government. It is a well known fact that Liberal governments past and present and Tory governments past and hopefully not in the future have built their party fortunes on the practice of patronage.

We can look at the who's who of business in the country and find Liberal and Tory friends, big time. We have seen time after time where Canadian companies that are well known supporters of the Liberals or the Tories end up with a multitude of contracts.

One that comes to mind since I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago is in the area of Canada Post, a crown corporation, and SNC-Lavalin. I know it is a little removed from what we are talking about. However SNC-Lavalin is a huge consortium, a huge company, a well known friend of the Liberal Party. In the last three years hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts have been let out by Canada Post. They have been uncompetitive and given with no public tender to SNC-Lavalin.

It does not take a rocket scientist to go through the political contributions over the last 10 or 15 years. Almost on an annual basis SNC-Lavalin and friend companies come up right at the top of the list as contributors to the Liberal Party. We wonder why.

I share the concerns, but to put thousands of contracts before the government operations committee, before members of Parliament, is simply unworkable and unreasonable. Let us talk about whether, if they did go before committee, the matter of committee examination raises larger issues with respect to how committees operate anyway.

The Liberals promised that committees would play a greater role in Parliament and that members would have input into the legislative process by way of their roles on the committees. What a joke.

Let us start with some of the more notable initiatives of the government when it comes to committees. One of the vice-chairs of committees is automatically given by tradition to a member of an opposition party in the House. There are two recognized opposition parties in the House. One is a federalist party that believes in Canada, that loves the country. Its power base in the last election just happened to have been in the western provinces, from Manitoba west. It was a good result for our first time out. We will wait until the next election. We will let the people of Ontario, Quebec, the maritimes and the rest of Canada determine our future.

We are a federalist party. We put forward a member's name from our party to sit as a vice-chair. The separatist party, the Bloc Quebecois, put forward a member. It is a party determined to break up the country. The Liberals had two options. One was a separatist who wants to destroy Canada and the other was a federalist who wants to keep Canada together and make some changes so that it will stay together. Who did the Liberals vote for en masse? They voted for the separatist member. In every vice-chair position the separatist member was supported by the Liberal Party.

The chairman of the public accounts committee is always an opposition member. The Reform Party, a federalist party, put forward the name of the member for St. Albert and the Bloc Quebecois put forward the name of a member of its party for the chairmanship of the committee. One would think the government would want someone in that position who has the interests of the future of Canada at heart. I would think that. Most Canadians would think that, but not the Liberals.

The Liberal whips were there to make sure all their committee members did exactly what they were told. They promptly voted in a member of the Bloc Quebecois, a separatist party whose goal is to break up the country, to be chairman of the public accounts committee. What a joke.

We can talk about the effectiveness of committees. Given the fact that government members dominate the committees in number, and they are the government so let us give them that credit, the effectiveness of the committee is nullified. If there was patronage going on, and I am sure there is, it would quite likely continue because the committee members would simply rubber stamp everything their party whips and powers that be told them.

We should look at how effective opposition members have been in committees and the way Liberals have bulldozed bills through committees. We need only look to Bill C-45, Bill C-64, Bill C-89 and Bill C-91 to find that the Liberals had no intention of listening to what the Reform Party or the Bloc party had to say.

When Bill C-64, the employment equity bill, was before the committee the Liberals allowed four witnesses from the Reform list to appear before the committee and debate on each clause was limited to five minutes. We are talking about a major piece of legislation the Liberals wanted to push through the House. What did they do? They sent the whip down to the committee examining

the bill to give Liberal members their instructions and the bill was rammed through.

Motion No. 8 has some merit in so far as the intent of the hon. member for Québec-Est. I agree with his intent but unfortunately it is simply not workable.

Motion No. 9 would cause a list of all government contracts in each constituency to be distributed to the appropriate MP every month. This would incur a tremendous amount of cost. The Reform Party is a fiscally conscious party. It wants to see government operations decreased rather than increased. Although we agree with the intent of the motions we have to oppose them and that we will.

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to address Bill C-52, more particularly the proposed amendments to clause 20 put forward by the Bloc Quebecois member.

Before doing so, I would like to make a few comments. When my colleague from the Bloc referred to contracts, he forgot to mention that the number of contracts awarded in the past few years has remained essentially unchanged. True, their value has increased, but he is well aware that this is because of a number of major contracts that skewed the information. He knew this, but he did not say it.

What is interesting, is that one of the government committees, the Standing Committee on Government Operations, decided to take a look at the matter. When it called witnesses, do you know what was interesting? It was that people in the public service were already looking at this question. They were studying it because they were concerned as well. There you have it. It is quite interesting, but he neglected to mention it.

I also find it interesting that my colleague has made all sorts of unfounded accusations. He claims it is rotten, claims there is patronage everywhere and claims that we are handing out money here and there as if it grew on trees. Frankly, I find this exaggerated and unfortunate. And what about my colleague from the Reform Party?

He makes accusations too. He can make any kind of accusation. He does not have any proof. It does not really matter. The Reform Party has a lusting for power. It is lusting so terribly that it is saying some terribly silly things. It is so silly that Reformers are trailing the Tories in the polls. That is how silly it is and Canadians know it is silly. I invite them to continue to make comments. Every time they do it helps the Liberal Party. Would you stand and continue? You are doing a fine job to help us.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Order, please. It is not for me to slow anyone down, but I remind the member to make his intervention through the Chair.

[Ronald J. Duhamel, Liberal, St. Boniface, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I was trying to speak through you to them. I shall make sure that I do so from here on in.

I will make a couple of comments as well with respect to contracts and sole sourcing. The preferred approach of the Department of Public Works and Government Services is always the competitive one. My colleagues know that. Why would they not have mentioned that?

They also know that there are good occasions and good reasons when we need to sole source. They know that. They also know that if we sole source, any supplier who feels qualified to meet the requirement can challenge the sole source award. They forgot to mention that. That is openness. That is transparency. Is it that they do not know or are they being mischievous?

It is interesting to note as well that advance contract award notices can be challenged. They are rarely challenged. What does that mean? That means that it is being done transparently. It is being done above board. I am really surprised that it would not have been mentioned.

I add as well that the House should also be reminded of other measures the Minister of Public Works and Government Services has taken to ensure integrity in the process. For example, all members of the House have been invited to subscribe to the open bidding system. I wonder if those who have been rather loquacious, vociferous and noisy today have done that.

The minister introduced the lobbyist certification clause. Do they know that? Do they know what it does? Probably not. An effective bid challenge process has been implemented in the department. Do they understand that? No, probably not. Contracting operations are subject to regular internal audits. That is another precaution. I cannot believe they would not share the positive as well as the questions they feel need to be addressed.

The Department of Public Works and Government Services holds supplier seminars across the country almost every day to make sure people are aware of what is happening. In this department small contracts are competed, contrary to the impression that was given, even contracts below the dollar threshold required by Treasury Board for competition. That was not said.

They did not talk about the transparency of the open bidding system. They have not said that for low dollar value procurements not advertised on the OBS the department uses an automated vendor rotation system which ensures equitable access to all suppliers of local commodity specific source lists of qualified

suppliers, another precaution. They did not mention that 75 per cent of suppliers subscribing to the OBS have 50 or fewer employees, which points out that small businesses take advantage of it.

We have no evidence of a trend for contract splitting in the department. The department statistics indicate a reduction in both the number of contracts under $30,000 and the number of contract amendments.

I thought we needed to set the record straight because either my colleagues have not done their work or they have done their work and choose to ignore the facts. Either one is unacceptable.

I get back to the specifics. It is my view that the amendment aims to address two issues related to the department's procurement activities: access to information on contracts and ensuring integrity in the procurement process. No one would argue that these are not worthy goals. Right now the department has mechanisms in place which address the same issues.

I am sure the members in opposition are familiar with Public Works and Government Services' efficient and rapid contract opportunity information dissemination system.

I am talking, obviously, about the Open Bidding System, the OBS. It is an electronic display panel providing information not only on opportunities for contracts over $25,000 for goods and over $60,000 for services, but on contracts already awarded. It provides details on the bid selected along with the name of the contractor and the amount of the contract.

The OBS gives its users, be they small or medium size businesses or members of Parliament, instant access to valuable information on procurement opportunities past and present.

If the goal of the member is to ensure that the system is fair, let me assure the House that many steps have already been taken by the minister and the department toward that goal. For instance, the Minister of Public Works and Government Services has taken positive steps to tighten up the manner in which the government awards contracts for advertising and public opinion research. This is a sensitive area, one in which the actions of the previous government have come under serious criticism. The minister has also moved to curb the potential influence that lobbyists could bring to bear on the contracting process.

All contracts awarded by Public Works and Government Services now include a clause requiring all firms to state that payment, in full or in part, of services rendered by all lobbyists hired to obtain the contract depends neither directly nor indirectly on the client's being awarded the contract.

In other words, conditional payment of honoraria to lobbyists is prohibited. As the result of these amendments, Treasury Board now requires all departments to prohibit contractors from paying their lobbyists conditionally.

If it is accountability that the member is concerned about, the function of procurement or contracting out is almost certainly the most closely scrutinized responsibility of the minister and Department of Public Works and Government Services. The contracting process is subject to the department's own rules and procedures; to Treasury Board regulations and guidelines; to scrutiny by cabinet and the auditor general; and of course, by the media and the Canadian public.

An emphasis on fair and open competition goes to the very heart of the drive for economic growth and renewal in this country. Fair competition encourages firms to strive for greater efficiency and to look for innovative ways of producing and delivering their goods and services.

These qualities are vital to the development of a strong and creative economy for Canada. It is therefore particularly important for the federal government to practice what it preaches in its own business operations.

By stressing competition, fairness, and openness in contracting, the government can help build a culture of excellence in this country and ensure the Canadian taxpayers get full value for their money. Passage of Bill C-52 and the creation of the Department of Public Works and Government Services will be a positive step in meeting this goal.

I will close by saying that I deplore this tendency we have of making unfounded accusations. I also deplore the tendency of exaggerating problems we have in government and I deplore the tendency of members not doing their homework before rising in the House.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

The question is on motion No. 8. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

Pursuant to Standing Order 76, the recorded division on the motion is deferred.

The next question is on Motion No. 9. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Some hon. members]

No.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. Kilger)]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.