Evidence of meeting #43 for Finance in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was charity.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Paulette Senior  President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Women's Foundation
Rahul O. Singh  Executive Director, GlobalMedic
Vivian Krause  Researcher and Writer, As an Individual
Jesse Brown  Publisher, CANADALAND, As an Individual
Michelle Kovacevic  Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Evelyn Lukyniuk

4 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Yes.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Go ahead, Ms. Kovacevic.

4 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

The records will show that those early days were about describing an entire frame for the student package, which turned out to be the $9 billion—

4 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

Thank you for that.

You mentioned a series of organizations, one of which was Volunteer Canada. The president of Volunteer Canada came before the committee and said that it had never been approached by your department, by any department, regarding a student package. When I asked the president of Volunteer Canada to explain Ms. Wernick's testimony, namely that Volunteer Canada had been considered, she was unable to explain how Volunteer Canada could have possibly been considered when it was never even contacted. How do you explain that?

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

That will be the last question.

4 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

All those companies and organizations I mentioned in my opening statement were all part of the broad ideas we were considering leading up to the April 22 announcement and decision by the government to, at a very high level—

4 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

But the only organization you really wanted to talk to was WE.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Mr. Cooper, the ADM has the floor.

Go ahead, Ms. Kovacevic.

4 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

Thank you.

Leading up to the April 22 announcement, in fact, the Department of Finance had not contacted any of those organizations, including WE. The officials had not contacted any of them.

4 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB

And they never did call Volunteer Canada.

4 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

You're out of time, Mr. Cooper.

We'll go to Mr. Fragiskatos. Then I'm not sure whether it's going to be Mr. Morantz or Mr. Cumming. They will let me know when we get there. We'll conclude with Ms. Koutrakis.

Peter.

4 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Kovacevic, thank you for being here and for your outstanding work in this entire experience. You and so many other public servants have really gone to bat for the entire country, I'm sure spending a lot of time away from loved ones, from family members specifically and others as well, so thank you for your contributions.

My question relates to contribution agreements that go ahead. We've heard at the committee before that WE had quite an extensive network connected to 7,000 schools, connected to 2.4 million students. One of the reasons they were chosen was because of that extensive reach they had. We've worked as a government as well with the United Way, with Food Banks Canada, always on a premise, it seems, that the network and reach of a particular entity qualifies it to take the lead in a contribution agreement.

Is that in fact the case in your experience? Are you in a position to speak to that? Is that one of the key criteria, the ability of an organization to reach many different entities and help the government deliver vital programming and services?

4:05 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

That's a pretty broad question. Thank you for it.

I'm not sure I can generalize. In some cases, that may be the case, but what I can say with respect to the decision by the government to enter into a contribution agreement with WE is that in fact the capacity to reach students wherever they were in Canada was certainly foremost in our mind, being able to ramp up quickly, being able to support not just students, because you know, volunteer matching isn't a hot dog stand outside a hockey arena but needs to be structured and you need to be supportive, but also the not-for-profit and charity sector who would be offering volunteer placements, who themselves were in the middle of a pandemic, many of them facing financial issues.

More importantly, what a typical volunteer experience was, given the social distancing scenario in the middle of the pandemic, made the whole thing very precarious. There were not a lot of organizations, quite frankly, in our estimation, that could cough up all these criteria and all these skills in the short order and the enormously aggressive timeline in which we were working.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Was there an organization that was comparable, or did WE have the type of reach that just set it aside as the organization? I mean, as I said before, the numbers we've heard are almost two and a half million students, 7,000 schools. Was there another organization that rivalled that at all, or did WE really have that ability unique unto itself?

4:05 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

To my knowledge, I don't think I can answer that, because I'm not an expert in social policy necessarily. I'm in the Department of Finance. However, from what we understood from our colleagues at ESDC, they were the best placed, given everything that was to be expected and the ambition of the government.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Peter, this is your last question.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

I've asked this question before, but I think it's worth raising one more time.

When the consideration was being taken as to who could best deliver the Canada student service grant, some have posed that the Canada service corps should have been chosen.

Why not the Canada service corps? What was it about them that prevented that option from going ahead?

4:05 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

In fact, the records will show that the Canada service corps was in fact the place where ESDC started. They actually submitted a proposal to us to ramp up its capacity to offer microgrants. In fact, there was one initial proposal where they ramped up to 7,000 microgrants, and there will be a record of me saying that was too modest. Then they came back with the second proposal of 15,000 microgrants.

I know ESDC also looked at the administrator Taking IT Global to see if it had two-factor authentication, if it had sophisticated ways to volunteer match and whether in partnership with the ESDC this was something we could leverage. In the end, the capacity obviously was funded for Canada service corps, but that was sort of the maximum, and the ambition and the need was still greater than what the Canada service corps, in our estimation and in ESDC's estimation, could deliver.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON

Thank you.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

Okay, thank you both.

Mr. Cumming, who are we going to from the Conservative camp, you or Mr. Morantz?

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Cumming Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

You're going to me. Thank you.

4:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Wayne Easter

That's good.

4:05 p.m.

Conservative

James Cumming Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

When you started to get into your more detailed discussions about WE, it sounds like it was on or around the 20th or 22nd, and you said you were looking at capacities. Who was looking at the capacity of this organization, their financial capacity, their ability to deliver, more than just statements from them about their reach? Reach could be Facebook likes. It could be their social media exposure, but that doesn't necessarily deal with capacity.

Who was looking at their actual physical capacity, because it sounds like they had to hire a raft of people before the contribution agreement was even signed and they've since had to lay them off. Was that your department or was that ESDC?

4:05 p.m.

Assistant Deputy Minister, Federal-Provincial Relations and Social Policy Branch, Department of Finance

Michelle Kovacevic

That is not my department. You will recall that leading up to the Prime Minister's announcement, there was no decision on a third party administer, so any discussion with WE was potential. Can you do social mobilization? Can you do a public awareness campaign? Can you be a partner in volunteer matching?

As the high-level announcement for up to $900 million was made on the 22nd, effectively the baton got tossed from finance department to ESDC, and it was now ESDC that was responsible to develop a proposal for consideration of cabinet on how to meet the criteria for the Canada student service grant.

The further questions you have asked would be carried out on the latter end, as opposed to the front end when it was more policy elucidation and deliberation. What we were really trying to do was to make sure there were credible organizations—not just WE, anything—so that when the Prime Minister announced the Canada student service grant, we could respond with assuredness to say, there are options that we can deliver on. Whatever those options may be, ESDC will have to elucidate and determine and recommend, but there will be options to deliver these grants to the students who need them within weeks.

The ambition of the government was initially for a May launch.

4:10 p.m.

Conservative

James Cumming Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB

I understand all that, but it strikes me it's Finance. You're sending out a $900-million program. Surely someone in your department.... If you're going to sign a contribution agreement, even if it's ESDC, who takes responsibility to make sure the organization you're going to sign the contribution agreement with has the financial wherewithal, the proper governance, everything you would expect when taking public sector dollars to execute the program. There must be somebody, whether it's ESDC, but surely Finance must have a role in that.